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PEC OUIN CLEAORANT CATA 





Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/councilofnicaeam00burn 





LETTER OF ATHANASIUS. P. LOND. 1929. 


The Council of Nicea. 


THE COUNCIL OF 
NICAEA 


A MEMORIAL FORITS 
SIXTEENTH -CENTENARY 


~=i&BY 
A. E. BURN, D.D. 


DEAN OF SALISBURY pee ‘ 
\ 
La 


WITH FRONTISPIECE 


LONDON 
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING 
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE 
New YorRK AND Toronto: THE MACMILLAN Co, 
Printed in Great Britain 


1925 


PREFACE 


Tue celebration of the Sixteenth Centenary of 
the Council of Nicaea is the obvious duty of our 
Church. An anniversary stimulates historical 
imagination. It supplies an opportunity to 
instruct the faithful about the events leading 
up to the Council and the progress of its debates, 
as well as its influence on the life and thought 
of the Church. Here we must be prepared 
for surprises. It is no longer possible to write 
in the easy picturesque style of Dean Stanley 
about the history or in the uncritical spirit of 
other writers about the inspiration of the 
Council. The facts must be laboriously sought 
out and arranged. ‘The inspiration, asserted 
not less earnestly, must be traced circum- 
spectly in the resolution of the leaders and 
the general agreement of the whole body of 
the faithful after half a century of woeful 
controversy. 

The new light which recent investigation 
has thrown upon the chief actors in the story 
is concentrated upon the Emperor Constantine. 
It is the revelation of his management of the 

Vv 


vl PREFACE 


Council which explains the ill-success of its 
doctrinal decisions in the years following, 
despite the overwhelming majority by which 
they were carried. ‘The restoration to favour 
of Eusebius of Nicomedia becomes intelligible, 
and the growing regard which Constantine 
from this time manifested for Eusebius of 
Caesarea. 

The inspiration of Church Synodal decrees 
is not to be judged so much by their immediate 
as by their subsequent results. It is not the 
term Homo-ousios = “‘ of one essence’ or “‘ sub- 
stance,’ as fortified by anathemas in a decree 
claiming to confute an antagonist, that stirs 
our gratitude for the overruling Providence of 
God. It is rather the same term inserted in a 
baptismal creed which became the oecumenical 
Liturgical creed, winning its way as a bulwark 
of the sense of Scripture, a defence of the 
mystery of the Person of our Lord against all 
attempts to explain it away. I know that this 
is a thesis which has to be proved, but I state 
my conclusion in advance because it is para- 
doxical in view of the need to criticise the legend 
of Nicaea which led to the canonisation of 
Constantine and an uncritical hallowing of the 
Council. 

The outstanding study of Arian controversy 
is still, in my opinion, Gwatkin’s Studies of 
Arianism. This opinion is confirmed by the 


PREFACE vii 


use which has been made of it by the most 
learned of subsequent writers, Robertson? 
and Harnack.? Bright’s Age of the Fathers, 
as Dr. Lock says in his preface, lacks acquaint- 
ance with modern contributions to our know- 
ledge, but is valuable for its intimate familiarity 
with the editions of the Benedictines of St. 
Maur, with Mansi’s Concilia, and with Tille- 
mont’s Mémoires. Kidd’s Church History rivals 
Bright’s accurate acquaintance with the original 
texts, and gives a fascinating concise survey of 
the Council. I regret that he has not given 
us his opinion on the recent Continental litera- 
ture on the subject. 

An important series of articles entitled 
Athanasiana has been published by E. Schwartz, 
Nachrichten von der Kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissen- 
schaften zu Géttingen,1905. Schwartz brought 
to light a Syriac document in a Paris MS. 
(Cod. Par. syr. 62), which purported to be the 
Synodal letter of a Council held in Antioch 
in December, a.p. 324.2 His defence of its 
genuineness was challenged by Harnack, Die 
angebliche Synode von Antiochien im fahr 324-325, 
in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy. 
Schwartz returned to the attack and was again 


1 St. Athanasius, Library of Nicene Fathers, 1892. 

* Edition after edition of his Dogmengeschichte, and his 
Grundriss, ed. 1924. 

3 With it are found some Canons which are quoted in Greek 
in a letter of St. Basil, 217 (Can. 65-83). 


vill PREFACE 


answered by Harnack. But strongly as he 
maintained his conviction that it was a forgery 
it is noteworthy that he ended up with a balance 
of reasons for and against. This showed some 
weakening of his confidence, and in the new 
edition of his Grundriss der Dogmengeschichte 
he is careful to quote these articles by Schwartz 
and also a thorough and capable monograph 
by E. Seeberg, son of another Berlin Professor, 
R. Seeberg, Die Synode von Antiochien im 
Jahre 324-25. 

This promising son of a distinguished father 
was fortunate in that for his book, a prize 
exercise and a first-rate piece of wore he had 
help from his father, Harnack, Holl, Deissmann 
and P. Meyer. He was able to quote in 
support of Schwartz, his father, Holl, Seeck. 
Against the theory he quotes Duchesne, 
who does not give any reasons for his opinion, 
F, Nau, G. Kriiger, and Bardenhewer ; also 
two Russian writers, Lebedew and Spasskiy, 
translated for him by his father. 

I have given this summary of the Schwartz- 
Harnack controversy because if this debated 
Synod of Antioch be accepted it modifies our 
opinion about the policy of Constantine and 
still more about the opinions of Eusebius of 
Caesarea, who was temporarily excommuni- 
cated by that Synod! Did he bring up his 

1 R. Seeberg, Dogmengeschichte, ed. 2. 


PREFACE 1X 


creed at the Council in self-defence? This is 
a most important point, and I have tried to 
keep an open mind and to indicate which of 
my conclusions depend upon this theory and 
which do not. 

In my chapter on “ Our Nicene Creed” I 
have considered recent arguments adduced by 
Badcock * against Hort’s famous theory of its 
origin, ze. that it is the Baptismal Creed of 
Jerusalem revised by the insertion of Nicene 
terms, not a direct revision of the Faith of 
Nicaea. My friend Dr. Badcock’s theories 
are always stimulating, and the reply to this 
and others, which I hope to give with technical 
details more suited to the pages of the Journal 
of Theological Studies, is long overdue. 

The only other outstanding crux of the 
history is the meaning of the term Homo-ousios, 
as taught by the Cappadocian Fathers in the 
last quarter of the fourth century. Was it 
inserted in “‘our Nicene Creed ”’ in the sense 
of Homoi-ousios (like in essence)? Does it 
represent a surrender to an obstinate semi- 
Arianism? I stand here against Harnack 
with Bethune Baker and Srawley. But the 
question is still sub judice, as Raven shows in his 
admirable survey of the first controversy.? 

Proposals for Reunion generally include 


Boy des RVie 205. 
2 Apollinarianism, pp. 64 N., 113 N. 2. 


x PREFACE 


‘“our Nicene Creed ” as the standard of dog- 
matic teaching. It is all the more important 
that there should be agreement about its 
history. For further discussion of technical 
details and the Greek and Latin texts I may 
refer to my Introduction to the Creeds and my 
Facsimiles of the Creeds ; for a simple com- 
mentary to my little book, The Nicene Creed. 

I most sincerely thank Mr. J. P. Gilson, 
Keeper of the MSS. at the British Museum, for 
permission to reproduce as a frontispiece a 
letter possibly in Athanasius’ own handwriting 
recently published by Mr. H. Idris Bell, whose 
translation is transcribed on p. 141. Also I 
thank Canon Macleane for help in correction 
of the proofs. 

The publication of this book is due to the 
initiative of the English Church Union. It 
has been written at short notice. I can only 
hope that in spite of its deficiencies it may 
help to stimulate interest in the great “‘ Council 
of Confessors.”’ 


A Le 


CONTENTS 


CHAP, 


PREFACE , : ; ‘ ‘ : 


I, EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE COUNCIL 


Il. THe Councit: iuTs CREED AND ITS 
CANONS , : ; : : 


III]. Reaction : ** ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE 


Wortp” '': ‘ : : : 
IV. Our Nicene CREED Z ; ; 
V. Eprtocu—E: Councits, CREEDS AND 
CRITICS : : : : : 


INDEX : ? : . f : 


xi 


PAGE 


20 


53 
82, 


120 


145 





THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


CHAPTER I 
EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE COUNCIL 


TuE first Oecumenical Council of the Church 
was summoned by the Emperor Constantine 
to restore peace to the great diocese and pro- 
vince of Alexandria, rent by the Arian heresy 
and the Meletian schism. The appeal made 
by Arius to his friends in Asia Minor and 
Palestine had greatly increased the area of dis- 
turbance. There were other practical con- 
siderations in view such as the proposed 
agreement on the calculation of the date of the 
Festival of Easter. But the settlement of the 
Arian controversy came first, and we are con- 
cerned to discover why the Imperial policy 
brought not peace but the sword. 

Not many years had passed since Christianity 
became a permitted religion, and the persecu- 
tion of Diocletian failed so completely that the 
joint emperors Constantine and Licinius when 
they proclaimed that toleration was necessary 

B 


Z THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


for public peace acknowledged its moral 
triumph. The way was opened for Christianity 
to become the religion of the State. Then 
came a quarrel which led to a fresh partition of 
the Empire, and Licinius was bitter against the 
Christians. He forbade the holding of synods, 
and issued absurd edicts, forbidding women to 
go to church with men, and ordering Christians 
to worship in the pure air of the country not 
in cities! Officials went further and put 
Christianstodeath. Anendsooncame through 
the victory of Constantine and the death of 
Licinius. Under Imperial patronage the 
triumph of the Church seemed secure. And 
yet—all that was gained by excellent legisla- 
tion, all that Constantine did for the building 
of churches, the costly supply of the best MSS. 
of the Scriptures, even the lavish hospitality 
offered to synods of bishops who travelled at 
State expense, was outweighed by the harm 
done to the Church through worldliness in the 
day of prosperity, and still more by the nemesis 
which surely followed upon punishment of 
heretics by the State. 

The character of Constantine is still an un- 
solved enigma. His acceptance of the Chris- 
tian religion had a superstitious side. As we 
shall have occasion to see, his shrewd insight 
into the possibilities of a political situation 
would not allow any scope to his conscience to 


EVENTS LEADING UP TO COUNCIL 3 


attach him to a religious point of view. It re- 
quired no sacrifice of conviction when he passed 
from the orthodox to the Arian side in the 
great controversy. He was only concerned 
for lip loyalty to the Creed of the Nicene 
Council. The loneliness of an autocrat sets 
him often at the mercy of bad advisers. It is 
not for us to judge him for the dark crimes of 
his later years, the murder of wife and son. 
His remorse was keen, but we may wish that 
he had had an unsophisticated chaplain like 
the Arian Ulphilas, Bishop of the Goths, rather 
than the capable schemer Eusebius of Nico- 
media, to minister to him in his last hours 
when he laid aside the Imperial purple for the 
white robe of a catechumen, and received 
‘“‘ Baptism for the remission of sins.” 
Alexandria was to him the second city of the 
Empire, renowned for the splendour of its 
buildings and the fame of its great university. 
Dr. Bigg, writing of the third century, says 
‘letters were cultivated and the exact sciences 
flourished as nowhere else by the banks of the 
Nile.” 1 But it was as the centre of the great 
corn trade that Roman Emperors cared more 
for the peace of its great commercial com- 
munity than for its academic glories, for they 
feared any disturbance which might interfere 
with the supply of corn to Rome. And the 
1 The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, p. 2. 


4 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


great Church of Baucalis, where Arius minis- 
tered, and in which the Patriarchs were elected 
by the tomb of St. Mark, reputed founder of 
the Church of Alexandria, stood down by the 
great wharves and granaries of the magnificent 
harbour. The populace to which Christians 
in times of persecution were so often sacrificed 
was held down by severer repression than else- 
where, and at times they had greatly benefited 
by the concern of the State for its corn market. 
The fame of the Catechetical school and its 
teachers, Clement and Origen, before his exile 
to Palestine, was in all the Churches, and the 
memory of the great Bishop Dionysius was not 
only that of a faithful and capable adminis- 
trator but also of a wise adviser to whom many 
resorted. 

His successor, Bishop Alexander, had in- 
herited trouble with the followers of the Bishop 
of Lycopolis, Meletius, who had quarrelled 
with Bishop Peter of Alexandria over the treat- 
ment of lapsed Christians. Meletius took 
the strict view, and when banished to the mines 
organised a schismatic Church of Martyrs, 
ordaining bishops and clergy. 

Schwartz thinks that some words of 
Epiphanius suggest that during the persecu- 
tion the Bishop of Alexandria had been com- 
pelled to seek help and had delegated his 
metropolitan functions to the Bishop of Lyco- 


EVENTS LEADING UP TO COUNCIL 5 


polis. This departure from ‘the traditional 
Alexandrian policy avenged itself. Meletius 
used his privileged position to form a dangerous 
opposition. 

Alexander began to have trouble with Arius 
about a.D. 318. Arius had been ordained 
deacon by Peter, went over to the side of 
Meletius when Peter refused to accept their 
baptism, but came back to Peter’s successor, 
Achillas, was ordained priest and put in charge 
of an important Church called Baucalis. He 
is described as a man of tall stature, of austere 
countenance and ascetic life. He had charm- 
ing manners and went about from house to 
house, with his sleeveless tunic and scanty 
cloak, popular especially among women. 

Certainly he was capable. As Duchesne 
says wittily : ‘In Alexandria it was not at all 
an exceptional thing to have a doctrine of one’s 
own.” 2 Professor Gwatkin has summarized 
it thus: ‘‘ Arianism then was almost as much 
a philosophy as a religion. It assumed the 
usual philosophical postulates, worked by the 
usual philosophical methods, and_ scarcely 
referred to Scripture except in quest of isolated 
texts to confirm conclusions reached without 
its help.”® ‘To the philosopher, God is the 
Supreme Being. “‘ He is alone ingenerate, 


1 Nachrichten, 1905, p. 185. 
2 Early History, i. p. 100. om ae 


6 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


alone eternal, alone without beginning, alone 
good, alone almighty, alone unchangeable and 
unalterable, and from the eyes of every creature 
His being is hidden in eternal mystery.” To 
bring this unknown Being into touch with the 
material world Arius felt the need of a mediator, 
an author of becoming whom men can know. 
But when he came to think out a theory of the 
Person of the Lord, although he never set him- 
self to lower it, and earnestly pressed its reality 
against Sabellianism, he was led astray by the 
demands of a false logic. If the essence of 
divinity is ingenerateness, there can be no Son of 
God in the strict and primary sense. . “‘ Genera- 
tion moreover implies unity of nature ; which 
at once destroys the singularity of God. It 
also ascribes to the Father corporeity and 
passion, which are human attributes, and even 
subjects the Almighty to necessity, so that it is 
on every ground unworthy of the deity. Nor 
is the difficulty at all removed by Origen’s 
unintelligible theory of an eternal generation ; 
much less by the heathen assumption of pre- 
existent matter. On every ground there seemed 
to be no escape from the conclusion that the 
divine generation is a definite and external act 
of the Father’s will, by which the Son was 
created out of nothing.”’! ‘This sounds unat- 
tractive theorising, but Arius was a popular 
2D, Vines 


EVENTS LEADING UP TO COUNCIL 7 


preacher and he managed to express his 
theories in popular phrases. It was not difh- 
cult to catch the popular ear with the argument 
that a father must exist before his son, therefore 
there was a time when the Son was not. Apply- 
ing this common-sense argument to the God- 
head, we are constrained to say that the 
Father alone is God, and the Son is so called 
only in a lower and improper sense. He ts 
not the essence of the Father but a creature 
essentially like other creatures, although only- 
begotten or unique among them. Like them 
possessed of a free will, and depending on the 
help of grace, He has a nature capable of moral 
change and only His virtue kept Him sinless. 
Even His true manhood was sacrificed to the 
attractive simplicity of the theory that the Word 
(Logos) was united directly to a human body, 
without a human spirit.2 Arius felt certain 
enough of himself to criticise a sermon by his 
bishop as teaching Sabellianism, the confound- 
ing of the Divine Persons, and we cannot deny 
that the teaching of Alexander was open to 
criticism. But when the teaching of Arius was 
laid before him he was not willing to act hastily, 
and it was not till after a.p. 318 that a synod 
was held at which Arius was condemned with 
two bishops who had espoused his cause. 


1 Gwatkin quotes the Thalia, Ath. O7. i. 6. 
2 Eustathius asserts this and Epiphanius traces it to Lucian. 


g THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


In the meantime Arius had held services in 
defiance of his bishop, canvassing support from 
house to house, enlisting the zeal of devout 
women, and appealing to the people in “a long 
rhapsody’ which he called the “* Thalia” or 
“Spiritual Banquet.” The metre was one 
which was used for immoral songs! ‘The 
following specimen may suffice : 


According to the faith of God’s elect 

Who comprehend God, 

Of the holy children 

The orthodox, 

Who have received the Holy Spirit of 
God, 

This is what I have learnt 

From those who possess wisdom 

Well educated people 

Instructed by God, 

Skilled in all knowledge, 

It is in their footsteps that I walk, even I 

That I walk as they do, 

I who am so much spoken of, 

I who have suffered so much 

For the glory of God, 

I who have received from God 

The wisdom and knowledge which I 
possess. 

1 Loofs, Art. “‘ Arianism ”’ in R.£., points out that the metre 


of the phrases ‘‘ Once He was not and Before His generation He was 
not,” in the Greek make up a Sotadean verse. 


EVENTS LEADING UP TO COUNCIL 9 


The self-satisfied tone explains the irrever- 
ence with regard to the great mysteries of 
Christian thought which throughout its history 
was the bane of Arianism. As_ Bishop 
Robertson says: “‘ The profound Ignatian idea 
of Christ as ‘the Word proceeding from silence’ 
is in impressive contrast with the shallow 
challenge of the Thalia, ‘Many words hath 
God spoken, which of these was manifested in 
the flesh ?24" 

I do not think we need consider seriously 
the statement that Arius was a disappointed 
candidate in the election of the Bishop of 
Alexandria. The wealth and influence of the 
Church both in Alexandria and Rome, and to a 
less degree in Antioch, made the position of 
bishop a post which a worldly man might covet. 
It does not seem that Arius was such. The far 
more important question which recent writers, 
particularly Schwartz and Seeck, have raised is 
the question whether the doctrinal controversy 
was not altogether subordinate to the quarrel 
between the bishop and the presbyter. Was 
Alexander endeavouring to suppress the con- 
stitutional rights of the presbyteral college 
which were of long standing in Alexandria? 
Was the outstanding result of Nicaea the 
victory of the bishop, whose privilege as second 
Metropolitan of the Empire was recognised 


1 Athanasius, p. Xxix. 


10 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


in Canon 15? MHarnack says that “The | 
Council of Nicaea was the first step taken by 
the Bishop of Alexandria in aspiring to the 
primacy of the East.” But the ambitions of a 
later generation must not be read back into the _ 
days when the Church was emerging from 
obscurity to become a potential political force 
of the greatest importance. Probably Con- 
stantine foresaw this. Whereas Diocletian 
grasped at world empire by suppressing the 
Church, Constantine by patronage obtained it. 

Like Origen, Arius fled first to Palestine to 
Eusebius of Caesarea, and then to Eusebius of 
Nicomedia, who held a synod in Bithynia which 
demanded his recall. Eusebius of Nicomedia 
and the Bishops of Nicaea, Ephesus and 
Chalcedon had all been fellow-scholars with 
Arius in the School of the Martyr Lucian at 
Antioch. MHarnack calls Lucian “ ‘The Arius 
before Arius,’ and says that he started_from 
the Christology of Paul of Samosata, the theory 
that Christ was a Man deified for moral 
progress. But Dr. Raven claims that ‘“Alex- 
ander’s letter, which seems of first-rate im- 
portance, simply states that Lucian was for the 
earlier part of his active career outside the 
orthodox communion, and that during this 
period he taught the doctrine of Paul, implying 
that he then maintained the distinction between 
Father and Son as between unbegotten and 


EVENTS LEADING UP TO COUNCIL 11 


begotten, and the human progress and adoption ~ 
of Jesus. This form of Paul’s theology, modi- 

fied as it is by the recognition of the persistent 
personality of the Logos, is exactly what his 
Arian pupils afterwards agreed to maintain, 
and in that time of uncertainty it would not 
seem far removed except in Christology from 
orthodox opinion. It is, however, clearly in- 
consistent with the views which he held later 
on after his admission to communion and at 
the time of his martyrdom.” ! 

When Constantine became sole Emperor he 
found reason to dread social disturbances in 
ereat cities, especially in Alexandria. Coming 
from the West, where in a.p. 314 he had 
arranged for a council at Arles to appease the 
strife raised by the Donatists in Africa, it was 
natural that he should pursue the same policy. 
At this time he was chiefly advised by Hosius, 
Bishop of Cordova, a capable man and a Con- 
fessor. He sent him to Alexandria to settle 
the dispute with a letter addressed to Alexander 
and Arius jointly !_ He expressed astonishment 
and distress with regard to affairs at Alexandria. 
He had counted on assistance from the Eastern 
Bishops in composing the African schism, and 
he found them divided. He argues that 
Alexander should not have asked the questions 
and Arius should not have answered them. 


1 Apollinarianism, p. 75. 


We THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


He assumes that they can compose their 
differences as is done in schools of philosophy ; 
it is only the common people and ignorant boys 
who quarrel about trifles! 

The whole question seemed to him an affair 
of words. But from a political point of view it 
was no small thing if a shattered empire could 
obtain support from a united Church. So 
when the mission of Hosius was a failure, 
though he brought back important information 
as to the seriousness of the controversy, Con- 
stantine determined to call a general synod of 
the Church to deal with it. 

At this point, if its advocates can make good 
their case, we must insert a reference to a synod 
said to have been held in Antioch at the end of 
the year A.D. 324. 

The synodal letter is found in a Syriac MS. 
in Paris (Cod. Parisinus 62) of the eighth or ninth 
century, the most learned of the Syriac law- 
books. Professor E. Schwartz,! who called 
attention to it in the sixth part of his studies 
on the history of Athanasius, has published a 
facsimile. It is addressed to Alexander, Bishop 
of New Rome, in the name of some fifty-six 
bishops. ‘The names of their sees are not 
given. Of these, forty-nine names appear in 
the lists of the Council of Nicaea. E. Seeberg 


1 Nachrichten von der Kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften xu 
Gottingen, 1905, S. 272 ff. 


EVENTS LEADING UP TO COUNCIL 13 


has given a full analysis. They. all come from 
the Diocese of the Orient of which Antioch 
was the capital. At the head stands Eusebius, 
identified with the Bishop of Isauria. And 
Isauria is lacking in the list of provinces, 
which seems a natural omission for a president 
to make, taking his own province for granted. 
From a letter of St. Basil to Amphilochius we 
gather that this bishop had the right to conse- 
crate bishops. The suggestion is therefore 
attractive that he came to Antioch on the death 
of Bishop Philogonius as an interventor, the 
term which was used in Africa to describe a 
bishop responsible for calling together a synod 
during a vacancy to elect a bishop. The letter, 
which is partly in the singular, informs us that 
the writer, presumably Eusebius, found great 
disturbance in the city, and at once determined 
to summon the neighbouring bishops. 
Probably the synod then elected Eustathius, 
formerly Bishop of Beroea, whose name comes 
second in the list, as Bishop of Antioch. 
Sozomen1 says that the choice was made by 
the Council of Nicaea, which objected in 
Canon 15 to translations but accepted transla- 
tions already made !_ Probably this translation 
was included as was the translation of Eusebius 
of Nicomedia, who had been Bishop of Berytus 
(Beirout). It would be as Bishop of this most 
TOILE at He 


14 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


important see that Eustathius took such a 
prominent part in the Council of Nicaea. 

Possibly Eusebius of Caesarea was proposed, - 
and his rejection may be hinted at in the re- 
mark that he made when on the deposition © 
of Eustathius in a.p. 330 he was strongly 
supported by Theodotus, Bishop of Laodicea, 
and Narcissus, Bishop of Neronias, whose 
names appear in the record of this former 
Synod. He writes that he would have given 
them peace. He certainly seems to have 
hankered after this see, although he made a 
merit of refusing it in 330. The Emperor 
warmly commended him. But disturbances at 
Antioch were a serious matter, and he may have 
been thankful that Eusebius refused, for the 
trouble was worse than before. We know that 
Arius had tried to get a footing, and before the 
Council of Nicaea, George afterwards Bishop 
of Laodicea, then presbyter of Alexandria, who 
was staying at Antioch, wrote to Alexander 
the Bishop : “ Do not complain of Arius and 
his fellows for saying, ‘ Once the Son of God 
was not:?) 

It 1s not clear whether there had been 
another bishop after the death of Philogonius 
In A.D. 322. Since Licinius forbade the hold- 
ing of synods there may have been difficulty 
about proceeding to an election. ‘The first 

1 Euseb. V.C. 1. 62. 2 Ath. de Synod., 17. 


EVENTS LEADING UP TO COUNCIL 15 


serious difficulty about the Synod 1s the 
suspicious title of the Bishop to whom its letter 
is addressed : Alexander, Bishop of New 
Rome. ‘This may be due to an editor. But 
it is a fact that Constantine determined to 
found a new capital soon after the defeat of 
Licinius, and although the foundation stone 
was not laid till November a.p. 326, it is quite 
possible that the project was known and the new 
name talked about. Alexander became Bishop 
of Byzantium * in a.D. 315 and was present at 
Nicaea,” though his name is missing in the 
lists. He was reckoned by Theodoret to be 
among the leading bishops,® and the Bishop of 
Alexandria thought it worth while to send him 
a letter. As the court moved between Byzan- 
tium and Nicomedia, it was. important to 
inform him as to events. 

The synod does not in its declaration on 
faith decide between Alexander and Arius, or 
produce a formula to decide the dogmatic 
quarrel. It takes political action required by 
the circumstances in Antioch, and conditionally 
excommunicates Eusebius of Caesarea with 
two others, Theodotus of Laodicea and Narcissus 
of Neronias. This is the amazing part of the 
story, and, if it can be finally accepted as true 
history, it clears up a good deal that was very 


1 Socrates, Sozomen. a DGLs Hits olin 20s 
* HEvint 


16 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


hazy in our accounts of the situation. Socrates 
tells us of a synod in Palestine which voted for 
Arius, and as Loofs puts it “ legalized schism 
in Alexandria.” We have no proof that 
Eusebius was concerned, but we know that 
he had interested himself in Arius. ‘The © 
manner in which his conduct and that of the 
other bishops attacked 1s described, the ironical 
charge of forgetfulness, and the earnest accusa- 
tion of untruthfulness fit in with what we know 
about Eusebius. 

Apparently the synod of Antioch compelled 
him to show his colours and he was excom- 
municated with his companions, until “the 
great and hieratic synod’’ should meet in 
Ancyra, where it was hoped they would come 
to repentance and full knowledge of the truth. 

Another recent find among Syriac documents 
is a letter from Constantine transferring the 
Council from Ancyra to Nicaea! ‘The reasons 
given are the healthiness of the climate and 
convenience in entertaining. These are prac- 
tical points, and I do not see why the document 
should be suspected, although I think it is 
possible to read too much into the Emperor’s 
reasons for making the change. I confess [ 
am dubious about theories such as this that 
Constantine, favouring the Arians, determined 
to make them victorious in Ancyra, where 
Marcellus was so bitter against them, and 


EVENTS LEADING UP TO COUNCIL 17 


then, better informed by Hosius, changed to 
Nicaea, where the Bishop Theognis was an 
Arian! It is probable enough that he deter- 
mined to widen the range of the Council, in- 
viting Western bishops.t To return to the 
Synodal letter from Antioch. The confession 
_ of faith appended has many of the phrases of 
Alexander of Alexandria, but is more precise. 
As Seeberg says, ‘ The problem for Alexander 
was in the flux of phraseology, but in the 
Antiochenum there are signs of crystallisation.” 
There are phrases which are quoted both by 
Artus and Alexander and go back to Lucian, 
probably quoted here from the old Creed of 
Antioch. 

Seeberg rightly lays stress on the Ante- 
Nicene character of the teaching. It would 
surely have been difficult for a forger later on 
to produce this impression. 

In the teaching of the second article the 
words “only begotten Son” are brought into 
prominence as in the Nicene Creed. Follow- 
ing Origen’s line of thought on the eternal 
generation they lay stress on the unknowable 
and inexpressible character of this going forth 
from the Father, no doubt in opposition to 
Arian description of the origin of Christ. 
Here the 4utiochenum brings into Creed litera- 
ture something singular. It connects closely 


1 As Harnack points out, the fact remains that very few came. 
c 


18 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 
the Being of Christ with the Being of the Father, 


and speaks of His ever working, and denies 
that He was formerly “ not-existing”’ as against 
the Arian phrases, ‘‘ There was a time when 
He was not,’’ and “‘ He was not before He 
was begotten.” It quotes the attributes “God 
the Word, true light, righteousness, Word and 
Saviour of all.’’ 

The bare mention of the Holy Spirit is, as 
Seeberg says, no slight proof of genuineness. 
Looking back over the form he finds here and 
there something uncommon but not impossible, 
original not bizarre. It preserves the type of 
Palestinian Creeds and ends with -anathemas 
against those who say or think or preach that 
the Son of God is a creature, or derived, or 
made, not truly begotten, or that there was a 
time when He was not. 

Of course the fundamental difficulty about 
accepting this document is the silence of 
Eusebius and Athanasius, of which Harnack 
makes much. But we can understand that 
Eusebius when he had been restored to favour 
would gladly ignore the past. And there is 
a probable reference in Epiphanius,? where 
Marcellus speaks of conflict with him at 
Nicaea, referring to his writing on ecclesiastical 


1 Our Lady is called “ Mother of God.” The phrase goes 
back to Origen ; cf. Euseb. /.C. iii. 43. 
2 Epiph. Haer. Ixxii. 2. 


EVENTS LEADING UP TO COUNCIL 19 


theology, with a veiled reference to his con- 
demnation with others, implying that this was 
before the Council of Nicaea. As regards the 
silence of Athanasius, Seeberg points out that 
he refers to the three-fold condemnation of 
Narcissus the companion of Eusebius His 
writings are all occasional. ‘The great bishop 
never wanted to write proper history. With 
him the victory of religion was the aim of all 
his action. It must have been unpleasant to 
him to describe the origin of the orthodox 
Nicaenum. He wanted to describe Constantine 
as the Emperor of Orthodoxy, and the rehabili- 
tation of these Arian bishops through the 
Emperor did not fit in well with his views. 
The real importance of the Synod of Antioch 
was not exactly great, it is only valuable for its 
viewing of events. It passed into oblivion 
after the Council of Nicaea. 


1 Apol. de fuga, 26. 


CHAPTER I] 


THE CounciL : ITS CREED AND ITS CANONS 


Nicaga, City of Victory, was the second city 
in Bithynia. The name pleased Constantine, 
self-styled the Victorious, when he decided to 
summon the Council from which he hoped so 
much to meet there rather than at Ancyra. 

It was more accessible and a most ‘attractive 
place. “The beautiful town lay on an 
eminence in the midst of a well-wooded flower- 
embellished country, with the clear bright 
waters of the Ascanian Lake at its foot.’”’1 The 
bright green of the chestnut woods in early 
summer stood out in the foreground, in the 
distance snow-capped Olympus towered over 
its mountain ranges. 

The number of bishops who attended the 
Council is uncertain. Constantine’s own letter 
to the Alexandrians speaks of more than 300 
bishops. Having entertained them he should 
have known. But it is curious that the lists 
of names-printed by Turner vary from 195 to 
223. Probably, except in the case of Rome, 


1 Newman. 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 21 


bishops represented by delegates were not 
included. Eustathius of Antioch, according 
to Theodoret, says about 270, but that he had 
not taken any pains to ascertain the exact 
number. Eusebius of Caesarea speaks of 
more than 250. Athanasius after a.D. 350 
said 300, and later on 318, the number which 
was generally accepted. Hilary speaks of 300 
or more, and again of 318, and so does 
Epiphanius. This number would be about 
one-sixth of the whole body of bishops. 

We are not impressed to-day by the mystical 
meaning attached to the number 318 as being 
the number of Abraham’s victorious servants ! 
In Greek numerals it was written T I H— 
T for the Cross; | H for the sacred name 
Jesus. 

After all, in view of the vicissitudes through 
which the real leaders of the Council passed 
to the triumph of their cause, it 1s not sur- 
prising that mystical and legendary stories and 
interpretations grew up. For the consistency 
of the defenders of its faith under unexampled 
trials proves that they relied on somethin 
more than a majority vote. And we hold that 
its subsequent world-wide acceptance confirms 
their claim to have contended earnestly for 
“the Faith of the Gospel,” for ‘ the truth as it 
is in Jesus.” 

The bishops travelled at public expense, in 


22 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


carriages, or on horses, asses and mules, with 
attendant priests, deacons, and servants, so 
that the number of the Emperor’s guests was 
large. The excitement at the preliminary 
meetings was intense. In these eminent 
philosophers and logicians seem to have taken 
part! It has been well said that “‘Aristotle 
made men Arians.” But the fortune of the 
debate was not to turn upon dialectical ability, 
indeed the greater number of the bishops 
were quite unversed in metaphysical subtleties, 
and only desired some formula which should 
exclude them. 

The personnel of the Council was preponder- 
atingly Eastern, but this did not impair its 
representative character.2. The great Eastern 
sees were all represented. Alexander of Alex- 
andria brought its suffragans. Eustathius of 
Antioch, Eusebius of Caesarea, Paulinus of 
Tyre, Macarius of Aelia (Jerusalem), repre- 
sented Palestine. Eusebius of Nicomedia, 
Maris of Chalcedon, Theognis of Nicaea itself, 
gave solid support for Arius in Bithynia. 
Marcellus of Ancyra was prominent in oppo- 
sition to them. From Cappadocia came 
Aristaces as proxy for his famous father, 
Gregory the []luminator.? We note the name 


1 Socr. H.£. 1, viil. 13. Kidd, t.ige, 
8 On p. 143 I have quoted the hymn said to have been sung 
on his return. 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 23 
of Theophilus, Bishop of the Goths. The 


Emperor out of respect for his character had 
specially invited the Novatianist Acesius. 
Socrates gives an amusing account of a con- 
versation between them after the Council. 
Constantine asked him whether he agreed with 
the Creed and the settlement of the Paschal 
question. “‘ There is nothing new, your 
Majesty,” he replied, “‘ in the decisions of the 
Council, for it is thus that from the beginning, 
and from the apostolical times I have received 
both the definition of the Faith and the time 
of the Paschal Feast.”” When asked why he 
still remained separate from the communion 
of the Church, he plunged into a long story of 
Novatianist grievances. But Constantine had 
the last word: ‘“‘ Plant a ladder, Acesius, and 
climb up into heaven by yourself.” 

The Western Empire was but thinly repre- 
sented. The Bishop of Rome, too old to come 
himself, had sent two priests, Vito and Vincent. 
From Calabria came Marcus, from Gaul 
Nicasius of Die, from Pannonia Domnus. 
Most important of all was Hosius of Cordova, 
the Emperor’s confidant. 

Eusebius of Nicomedia was a_ suspect, 
through his connection with Licinius, and as 
protagonist on the Arian side. Eusebius of 
Caesarea had not yet made the profound im- 
pression which gave him influence in later 


24 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


years. According to the new evidence he also 
was suspect. 

St. Chrysostom calls the synod a Council of 
Confessors.1. Indeed many of them bore the 
outward marks of persecution, such as Paul of 
Neo-Caesarea, whose hands had been paralysed 
with hot irons. Two Egyptian bishops had 
each lost an eye. One of them, Paphnuttus, 
who had also been hamstrung, was singled out 
by the Emperor, who kissed his mutilated face. 
Hosius himself had suffered under Maximin, 
Kustathius also.? 

It was this quality of so many of its members 
which gave its supreme influence to that first 
Oecumenical Council on the life and thought 
of the Church. It was not mere numbers, nor 
the Emperor’s favour, but the subsequent 
general consent of the faithful to its decisions 
which gave them validity. In the cold light 
of criticism it is possible to paint many of them 
in unpleasing colours. ‘They were passionate 
and vindictive, ready to rail at one another 
and to acquiesce in the punishment of their 
opponents by the State. Truth demands that 
we should say this at the outset, and acknowledge 
further that they were not all of them intel- 
lectual enough to appreciate all the arguments 
used in the debate. It has often been pointed 
out that the final form of the Creed, submitted 

1 Orat.c. Fudaeos, iii. 3. 2 Ath. Hist. Ar. 12. 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 25 


as a test of orthodoxy for bishops, was carried 
through by the efforts of a clear-sighted 
minority. Yet when we have said all this the 
fact remains that the very lack of education 
which debarred many of them from following 
subtle arguments made their practical unani- 
mity on the main question all the more im- 
pressive. Like the first Apostles chosen by the 
Lord to be witnesses they had the primary 
qualification of witnesses, ability to tell a plain, 
unvarnished story of their experience of the 
Christ who lived as Man among men, and 
ointed them to the way of salvation from sin. 
They had indeed taken up the cross to follow 
Him who paid in His Cross the price of their 
salvation. They had found in the mystery of 
His Resurrection the revelation of a new life, 
the power to conquer sin, and in their con- 
viction of His Lordship they found power to 
suffer for Him. Their religious experience 
was the ground of their loyalty to the belief 
handed down to them by their fathers that He 
was Divine, on the strength of which they 
worshipped Him. This was the ultimate test 
in the long controversy which followed. If 
Christ is not really the Son of God, it 
is idolatry to worship Him. The crucial 
phrase of their Creed which confesses Him 
to be in the mystery of His Person “ un- 
created of the essence of God the Father” 


26 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


stated a claim to which their consciences bore 
witness. 

The date of the opening has been disputed, 
but Socrates! is probably right in stating 
May 20, for we know from the dating of a. 
law in the collection known as the Theodosian 
Code 2 that the Emperor was at Nicaea on the 
23rd of that month. It is commonly said that 
the Emperor did not arrive till July 3, when 
he had kept the anniversary of his victory at 
Adrianople. But there seems to be some reason 
for assigning June 19 ° as the date of the final 
decision against Arianism, and that would leave 
barely thirty days for the protracted debates, 
during some of which he was present. It would 
also leave another month for the discussion of 
the Meletian question and the date for the 
keeping of Easter, in which Constantine took 
just as much interest as in the doctrinal question. 

The Council met first in the Church, but 
not with closed doors, for not only Christian 
laymen but even pagan professors took part in 
the debate. 

When the Emperor arrived from Nicomedia 
he received a great packet of accusations made 
by bishops against bishops. ‘The next day he 
met them in a large hall of the palace, with 
seats arranged along the sides of the hall. 


Lilet @ AY Sr eh 2 Cod. Theod. 1. 25. 
3 Chron. Pasch. and Acts of C. of Chalcedon, Mansi, vi. 956. 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 27 


There was a low chair for the Emperor, in 
front of which stood a table on which lay an 
open copy of the Holy Gospels. We can 
imagine the thrill of emotion with which the 
assembly rose to welcome his entrance into the 
synod. They saw a tall, commanding figure, 
clad in the imperial robe, with a jewelled 
diadem, yet he advanced with a faltering step, 
while a blush spread over his cheek, and he 
remained standing until invited to sit ! 

One of the bishops—Eusebius of Caesarea 
calls him “ Father of the right party ”—made 
a speech.t Some have thought that this was 
Eusebius himself, but it was more probably 
Eustathius, who is said by Theodoret to have 
crowned the Emperor’s head with a garland 
of eulogy, and thanked him for the interest 
which he had taken in religious affairs. 
Eusebius followed with a more elaborate 
oration. The Emperor made a short reply in 
Latin, which was at once translated into Greek : 
“Tt is the sum of my wishes to find myself in 
your midst, and I owe thanks to the Saviour 
of the Universe that this wish has been 
attained.” ‘Then having spoken of unanimity 
he continued: “I your fellow-servant am 


deeply pained whenever the Church of God is 


1 Seeck, Z. f. K. G. x. 524’ thinks that Eusebius betrays the 
name in the heading, /.C. iil. 11, where Eusebius the Bishop would 
mean of Nicomedia, the province in which the Synod was held. 


28 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


in dissension, a worse evil than the evil of war.” 
He entreated them to put aside all personal 
enmities, produced the packet of accusations, 
and burnt it in a brazier with some words on 
the Christian doctrine of forgiveness. 

The great debates then began in earnest, 
the Emperor following and sometimes taking 
part in them. According to ‘Theodoret, 
Eustathius of Antioch presided.1. He had 
presided over the Councils of Ancyra and Neo- 
Caesarea. But Hosius signs first in the lists 
and at the time stood first in the Emperor’s 
confidence. Harnack may be right in suggest- 
ing that the occupants of the great sees may 
have presided in turn. 

Dr. Raven has justly called attention to the 
importance of the share which Eustathius took 
in the debates, which made him obnoxious to 
the Arians as a zealous opponent of their teach- 
ing, and also to the moderate or conservative 
majority because he disapproved of the prin- 
ciples of Origenism. While Athanasius and 
his fellows attacked only the minor premiss of 
the Arian syllogism that Christ was capable of 
change, the School of Antioch remained faithful 
to the Syrian tradition and attacked the major 
premiss that Christ was the Logos. In other 
words, Eustathius taught that Christ possessed 
a complete human soul. ‘This is most impor- 

Bris Ge 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 29 


tant, for 1t was dented by the Arians, and accord- 
ing to Raven and others was not believed by 
Athanasius at this period, though its strenuous 
assertion by Eustathius may have been partly 
responsible for the modification of Athanasius’ 
views in the conciliar letter of a.p. 362. The 
records are fragmentary and imperfect, but we 
gather that Arius was again called before the 
Council, as before the Emperor’s arrival, and 
expressed himself energetically. He made a 
bad impression on Constantine, who was 
sarcastic at his expense. Dr. Bright says that 
his outspoken frankness (to be remembered to 
his credit) was an embarrassment to Eusebius 
of Nicomedia, who tried to minimise its effect 
and obtain Constantine’s support.’ According 
to Eusebius of Caesarea, Constantine listened 
patiently to all and took time to weigh the 
arguments advanced. The situation began 
to clear. To their dismay the Arian leaders 
found that they could not depend on more than 
seventeen supporters. They seem to have 
underrated the novelty of their teaching, and 
even to have expected a victory.” 

It seems to have been agreed that the 
common belief of the Church should be ex- 
pressed in some formula. The question is 
whether the famous scene in which the Arians 


1 Ath. ae decr. 3. 
2 Cf. letter of Arius: Theodoret, H.£. 1. 5. 


30 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


conspired to accept phrases both traditional 
and scriptural, which seemed to imply the 
eternal Godhead of the Son, with the intention 
to use them in another sense, preceded the 
production of an Arian formula. I think it is 
clear that Athanasius in his ‘‘ Defence of the 
Nicene Definition ” is going back to the later 
debates on the words to be inserted into the 
Creed of Eusebius of Caesarea, since in c. 19 
he quotes ‘‘ from the essence of God,” and 
in c. 20 “one in essence.”’ ‘These chapters 
are among our primary sources of information 
and are so vivid that I will quote them in full. 
But we must first consider what sort of creed 
was brought forward by Eusebius of Nico- 
media, of which Eustathius of Antioch wrote : 

“The formulary of Eusebius was brought 
forward which contained undisguised evidence 
of his blasphemy. The reading of it before 
all occasioned great grief to the audience on 
account of its departure from the faith, while 
it inflicted irremediable shame on the writer. 
After the Eusebius gang had been clearly con- 
victed and the infamous writing had been torn 
up in the sight of all, some amongst them by 
concert under the pretence of preserving peace, 
imposed silence on all the ablest speakers.” 4 
There are several puzzles here. The formu- 
lary of Eusebius of Nicomedia has been identi- 

1 Theodoret, H.£. i. 7. 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 31 


fied with his letter to Paulinus of Tyre. But 
it is more probable that it was a confession of 
faith drawn up on the lines of the teaching of 
Arius, whom we may say he gallantly defended. 
We must remember that he was out of favour 
with the Emperor as having been in close touch 
with Licinius. He is said to have been dis- 
tantly related to the Royal House, which may 
account for his influence over Constantia, 
widow of Licinius, Constantine’s sister. Huis 
effort failed and the Arian following was reduced 
to five. But Eusebius himself was pardoned. 

Then Eusebius of Caesarea came forward 
witha formula mainly drawn from the baptismal 
Creed of his own Church, with an addition to 
guard against Sabellianism. 

He was one of the most learned men of the 
day and in popular opinion most eloquent, but 
“neither a great man nor a clear thinker.” The 
new evidence that he was an Arian at heart and 
sufficiently compromised by action which he 
had taken on behalf of Arius to warrant the 
sentence of temporary excommunication which 
the Council of Antioch had passed on him, 
implies that he was called on to clear himself 
rather than as a champion of a middle party 
who did not see eye to eye with either side. 

The evidence goes to show that there were 
only two parties, for and against Arius, and 
that more definite opposition against him had 


a2 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


been stirred up in Palestine than we have 
‘hitherto known. And I confess that this view 
explains far more simply the readiness of 
Eusebius of Caesarea to plot with his namesake 
of Nicomedia against the Nicene leaders within. 
a couple of years after the Council. 

His formulary ran : 

‘““As we have received from the Bishops 
who preceded us, and in our first catechisings, 
and when we received the Holy Laws, and as 
we have learned from the divine Scriptures, 
and as we believed and taught in the presbytery, 
and in the Episcopate itself, so believing also 
at the time present, we report to you our faith, 
and it is this : 

“We believe in One God, the Father Al- 
mighty, the Maker of all things visible and 
invisible. And in One Lord Jesus Christ, the 
Word of God, God from God, Light from Light, 
Life from Life, Son only-begotten, first-born of 
every creature, before all the ages, begotten 
from the Father, by Whom also all things were 
made, Who for our salvation was made flesh, 
and lived among men, and suffered, and rose 
again the third day, and ascended to the Father, 
and will come again in glory to judge the quick 
and dead. And we believe also in One Holy 
Ghost : 

“ Believing each of these to be and to exist, 
the Father truly Father, and the Son truly Son, 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 33 


and the Holy Ghost truly Holy Ghost, as also 
our Lord, sending forth His disciples for the 
preaching said, ‘Go teach all nations, baptizing 
them in the Name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’ Concerning 
whom we confidently afirm that so we hold, 
and so we think, and so we have held aforetime, 
and we maintain this faith unto the death, 
anathematizing every godless heresy,”’ etc. 

No one had a word to say against this state- 
ment. It was unassailable from the point of 
view of Scripture and tradition. I venture to 
suggest that it was discussed in detail, and that 
this is the point at which we should quote the 
vivid recollections of Athanasius. 


DEFENCE OF THE NICENE DEFINITION 


“Chapter 19. The Council wishing to do 
away with the irreligious phrases of the Arians, 
and to use instead the acknowledged words 
of the Scriptures, that the Son is not from 
nothing, but ‘from God,’ and is ‘ Word’ 
and ‘ Wisdom,’ and not creature or work, but a 
proper offspring from the Father, Eusebius and 
his fellows, led by their inveterate heterodoxy, 
understood the phrase “‘ from God ”’ as belong- 
ing to us, as if in respect to it the word of God 
differed nothing from us, and that because it is 
written, ‘There is one God, from whom are all 

D 


34. THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


things ; and again, old things are passed away, 
behold all things are become new, and all things 
are from God.’ But the Fathers, perceiving 
their craft, and the cunning of their irreligion, 
were forced to express more distinctly the sense © 
of the words ‘from God.’ Accordingly they 
wrote ‘ from the essence of God,’ in order that 
‘from God’ might not be considered common 
and equal in the Son and in things originate, 
but that all others might be acknowledged as 
creatures, and the Word alone as from the 
Father. For though all things are said to be 
from God, yet this is not the sense in which 
the Son is from Him; for as to the creatures, 
‘of God’ is said of them on this account, in 
that they exist not at random or spontaneously, 
nor come to be by chance, according to those 
philosophers who refer them to the combina- 
tion of atoms, and to elements of similar 
structure,—nor as certain heretics speak of a 
distinct Framer,—nor as others again say that 
the constitution of all things is from certain 
angels ; but in that (whereas God is), it was 
by Him that all things were brought into being, 
not being before, through His Word ; but as to 
the Word, since He is not a creature, He alone 
is both called and is ‘ from the Father’ ; and 
it is significant of this sense to say that the Son 
is ‘from the essence of the Father,’ for to 
nothing originate does this attach. . . . 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 35 


“Chapter 20. Again, when the bishops said 
that the Word must be described as the True 
Power and Image of the Father, in all things 
exact and like the Father, and as unalterable, 
and as always, and as in Him without division 
(for never was the Word not, but He was always, 
existing everlastingly with the Father, as the 
radiance of light), Eusebius and his fellows 
endured indeed, as not daring to contradict, 
being put to shame by the arguments which 
were urged against them ; but withal they 
were caught whispering to each other and 
winking with their eyes, that ‘like’ and 
‘always’ and ‘ power,’ and ‘in Him,’ were, 
as before, common to us and the Son, and that 
it was no difficulty to agree to these. As to 
‘like,’ they said that it 1s written of us, ‘ Man 
is the image and glory of God’; ‘always’ that 
it was written, ‘ For we which live are alway’ ; 
‘in Him,’ ‘In Him we live and move and 
have our being,’ ‘ unalterable,’ that it is 
written, ‘ Nothing shall separate us from the 
love of Christ’; as to ‘power,’ that the 
caterpillar and the locust are called ‘ power’ 
and ‘ great power,’ and that it is often said of 
the people, for instance, ‘ All the power of the 
Lord came out of the land of Egypt’; and 
there are others also, heavenly ones, for Scripture 
says, ‘ [he Lord of powers is with us, the God 
of Jacob is our refuge.’ ”’ 


36 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


This vivid description of the scene, although 
written a quarter of a century later, after a.p. 
34.6, is justification for the momentous decision 
to insert the words, ‘‘ of the essence of the 
Father’? and ‘‘ of one essence.’’ Constantine 
himself is said to have proposed the word, 
prompted by Hosius. As Bishop Robertson 
puts it: “ The suggestion thus quietly made 
was momentous in its result. We cannot but 
recognise the prompter Hosius behind the 
imperial recommendation: the friends of 
Alexander had patiently bided their time, and 
now their time was come: the two Eusebii 
had placed the result in their hands. But how 
and where was the necessary word to be in- 
serted? If some change was made in the 
Caesarean formula would it not be well to put 
other details right ?”’} 

There can be no question that necessity was 
laid on them to do it. Ambrose? quotes a 
letter in which Eusebius of Nicomedia wrote : 
‘“Tf we call Him the Son of the Father and 
uncreate, then are we granting that He is ‘ one 
in essence.’ ”’ 

Seeberg calls attention to the fact that the 
term had been disavowed as Manichean by 
Arius himself in Alexandria. ‘“‘So that the 
stick with which he was chastised was cut out 
of his own wood.’ 2 


1 Athanasius, p. xix. * de Fide, iii.n. 125. * Seeberg, p. 204. 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 37 


Hosius, then, may have been prompter at 
the time, but the other leaders, especially 
Alexander and Marcellus, must have agreed 
beforehand. It is interesting to note that 
Dionysius of Alexandria wrote to Dionysius of 
Rome to refute the false charge that he had 
denied that Christ is “‘ co-essential with God.” 
“For though I say that I have not found or 
read this term anywhere in Holy Scripture, yet 
my remarks which follow, and which they have 
not noticed, are not inconsistent with that 
belief.” 

We must return to the mysterious words of 
Eustathius about a compact of silence. Blom- 
field Jackson’s translation, ‘some amongst 
them,’’+ gives a misleading impression because 
“amongst them” is not in the Greek of 
Theodoret and implies that the compact was 
made by the Arians. If “ some”’ does refer to 
them, the simplest explanation would be to 
take it as referring to the scene described by 
Athanasius when they winked at and nudged 
each other. But Eustathius goes on to speak 
of the Ariomaniacs as “‘ fearing lest they should 
be ejected from the Church by so numerous a 
council of bishops,” and springing forward 
“to anathematize and condemn the doctrines 
condemned,”’ which does not look as if he 
thought of them as making a compact of silence. 

1 Nicene Library, Theodoret, p. 44. 


38 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


The opening is thus made for the very 
ingenious conjecture of E. Seeberg that the 
compact was made between the leaders of the 
orthodox party and Constantine. They accepted 
the Emperor’s point of view for the sake of 
peace. Their victory brought with it the 
recognition of Eusebius and acceptance of his 
creed after the insertion of Homo-ousios. Accept- 
ing the evidence of the synod of Antioch that 
Eusebius appeared before the Council on his 
defence, not as historians have represented as 
the Emperor’s mediator, we can define his 
position more exactly. He himself was startled 
by the Homo-ousios, but accepted it as approved 
by the Emperor. 

This also explains why the orthodox should 
keep silence about his previous condemnation. 
For they themselves had something to keep 
silence about, the raising of this self-justifying 
creed to the status of an oecumenical symbol. 

Of course it was greatly altered. ‘“‘ But the 
orthodox have always sacrificed the ideal goal 
to the attainable. ‘They carried out a policy, 
and that in religious things in which purely 
spiritual goods are handled is always doubtful.” 

These words of Seeberg are valuable, for 
they make us think, but I question whether 
they are quite fair to the orthodox in this 
instance. After all they did not use the purely 

AP. ars. 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 39 


personal part of the formulary, only the part 
which was not his, but the creed of his Church. 
And the policy which was imposed on them 
was Constantine’s own, who took a thoroughly 
worldly point of view. ‘Their victory was no 
triumph. His policy indeed was what really 
conquered. Eusebius rehabilitated could be 
useful to him. ‘This is a fresh point of view 
which is deserving of full consideration. 


THE CREED OF THE COUNCIL 


“We: believe in One ‘God, the Father 
Almighty, Maker of all things visible and 
invisible :—And in One Lord Jesus Christ, the 
Son of God, begotten of the Father, Only- 
begotten, that is, from the essence of the 
Father ; God from God, Light from Light, 
Very God from Very God, begotten not made, 
One in essence with the Father, by Whom all 
things were made, both things in heaven and 
things on earth ; Who for us men and for our 
salvation came down and was made flesh, lived 
among men as man, suffered, and rose again 
the third day, ascended into heaven, and cometh 
to judge quick and dead. 

“And in the Holy Ghost. 

“And those who say, ‘Once He was not,’ 
and ‘ Before His generation He was not,’ and 
‘He came to be from nothing,’ or those who 


40 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 
pretend that the Son of God is ‘ Of other sub- 


sistence or essence,’ or ‘ created,’ or ‘ alterable,’ 
or ‘mutable,’ the Catholic Church anathe- 
matizes.”’ 

The. important alterations are: (1) The 
word “Son ” was substituted for Logos (Word), 
and the subsequent clauses were referred to it. 
This was in part anti-Sabellian but corrected the 
subordinationism of Eusebius.) (2) The words 
“begotten of the Father, Only-begotten, that 
is, from the essence of the Father’ were 
inserted with ‘‘ One in essence with the Father.” 
(3) The addition of “not made” after “ be- 
gotten,” “ carefully contrasting the two parti- 
ciples which the Arians so industriously con- 
Hised eS t ay A adeaved among men as man, . 
brought in to explain ‘“‘ was incarnate,” “ by 
excluding the Christology which Arius. in- 
herited from his teacher Lucian.” ® 

The Creed was finished. ‘Tradition says that 
the Council paused. It was a fateful moment 
in the history of religious thought, for great 
issues hung in the balance. The claim of 
Divinity for our Lord is what brings all the 
bitterness into the age-long controversy between 
Christians and both Jews and Mahommedans 
in many parts of the world to-day. If we could 
tone it down, precisely as the Arians did, our 


1 Kidd, ii. 30. 2 Gwatkin, p. 45. 
3 Kidd i. 31. 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 41 


relations would improve as theirs did both with 
Jews and educated heathen. 

Onan appointed day—there 1s some evidence 
that it was June 19 1—at a formal session 1n the 
Emperor’s presence, the Creed was read out 
by ns ae eae) afterwards Bishop of Cappa- 
docian Caesarea,” and signed by the bishops in 
order. Eusebius of Nicomedia made some 
difficulty. It was reported that he refused 
to sign the anathemas. Also that he was 
influenced by Constantia, who is said to 
have suggested that he might sign it giving 
to Homo-ousios the sense of Homoi-ousios. In 
fact only two Egyptian bishops out of the 
whole number, Theonas and Secundus, finally 
refused, and were condemned by Constantine 
to exile with Arius, Secundus as he left warning 
Eusebius that he would not long escape the 
same fate. 

Eusebius of Caesarea also demurred, but the 
next day, finding that the Emperor supported 
the term and that the majority disclaimed any 
materialistic sense and afhirmed that the Divine 
essence was not capable of division or alteration, 
and that his beloved Pamphilus had quoted 
Origen as admitting it, made up his mind to 
sign, and wrote a letter to his diocese to explain 


1 Seeck quotes Chron. Pasch. and Acts of C. of Chalcedon, 
Mansi, vi. 956. 
2 Basil, Zp. 81. 


42 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


his action. Zahn calls it “‘a mixture of theo- 
logical incapacity and disingenuousness.”’ } 
Duchesne calls it “ pitiful and insincere. It 
must have weighed heavily on the conscience 
of its author.” 

It was a disaster for the Church when the 
State thus stepped in to punish heresy with 
exile and the burning of heretical books and the 
direction that they should be called Porphyrians, 
which was, as Gwatkin says, “a convenient 
way of refusing them the Christian name.” 

The objection which is sometimes urged to 
the proceedings at Nicaea that discussion was 
stifled is not well founded. There was a 
free debate, and the bishops were unwilling to 
accept any but Scriptural terms. 

The Council is charged with exalting meta- 
physics over ethics, putting theology in place 
of religion. But we cannot have religion without 
theology, unless we are prepared to “‘ acquiesce 
ina dumb faith’’: Greek metaphysical language 
was part of the preparation for the Gospel, 
and “‘ Christianity became metaphysical 
only because man 1s rational.” ? 

We shall return presently to the objection 
that we do not now think in “ terms of sub- 
stance,” and require a better theology in terms 


1 Marcellus, p. 18. 
2 Kidd, ii. 36, quoting Robertson, Ath. xxxill., and Gore, 
Incarnation, p. 21. 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 43 


of Will. But,as Kidd points out, ‘this attempt 
to build upon psychology rather than upon 
metaphysic. was tried long ago by the semi- 
Arians, who thought it enough to affirm a 
unity of will, and not of essence, between the 
Son and the Father. So from Nicaea onwards 
‘essence’ or ‘substance’ has held the field 
as the only effective safeguard for the Divinity 
of our Lord. We do not now think in the 
language of substance ; but it is still intelligible, 
nor 1s there any sign of its being superseded by 
a better.” } 


Tue MELETIAN SCHISM 


It remained for the Council to turn their 
attention to other business, in the first place the 
settlement of the Meletian troubles in Egypt. 
In their letter to the Alexandrian Church they 
deplore the headlong rashness of Meletius, . 
and those whom he had ordained. “In 
strictness’’ Meletius deserves no favour; “ but 
he is dealt with indulgently, for we allow 
him to remain in his own city, and to retain a 
nominal dignity, but not to lay on hands, nor 
to announce his intention of doing so, either 
there or anywhere else.” He was received into 
communion, but those whom he appointed were 
to be “ confirmed by a more sacred ordination.” 
They were to retain their rank but must yield 

1 Kidd, ii. 36. 


44 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


precedence to those ordained by Alexander, nor 
might they do any episcopal act without the 
consent of “the Catholic bishops of their 
cities.”’ On the death of a Catholic bishop a 
Meletian bishop might be elected to succeed 
him if approved by the Bishop of Alexandria. 
Meletius was instructed to provide a list of all 
his clergy, and his dissatisfaction was evident 
in the slowness with which he performed the 
task. ‘The compromise was even less pleasing 
to Alexander, and in after days Athanasius 
expressed keen regret that the Council had 
been so forbearing. But we can trace again 
the influence of the Emperor, who did not 
desire the victory to be too sweeping. It 
may be true to say with Harnack: ‘‘ The 
Council of Nicaea is the first step taken by the 
Bishop of Alexandria in aspiring to the primacy 
of the East.’”’? But this was not apparent at 
the time. 


Tue PascHaL QUESTION 


With a statesman’s insight, Constantine 
earnestly desired the settlement of another con- 
troversy, less important but a far-reaching 
cause of irritation. ‘The controversy on the 
date of Easter was of long standing, but had 
become less virulent. It was now mainly a 
question of calculation. As Dr. Kidd puts 

1 DG. ii. 59. 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 45 


it concisely : ‘‘ All the Churches agreed that 
Easter must be celebrated, that it must be 
preceded by a fast, and that the Pasch must 
have some relation to the Jewish date, 14th 
Nisan. During the second century the ques- 
tion was, What relation? With, or without, 
further reference to the Lord’s Day as well? 
Some said, Without ; for Christianity is the 
heir of Judaism, and the Apostles observed the 
Sabbath, went to the Temple and so forth. 
So Polycarp kept the 14th Nisan, regardless of 
the First Day of the week. He was a Quarto- 
deciman. Others answered, With that refer- 
ence; for the Resurrection and the Lord’s 
Day are the vital things, and the observance of 
the Pasch, though it begin on (what we call) 
Good Friday, is not complete till Easter morn- 
ing. This was the view of Pope Anicetus, 
who ‘refused to keep’ the 14th Nisan only. 
During the third century the Paschal question 
entered upon a further stage. It was not now, 
‘Should we calculate Easter by reference to 
the day of the week as well as to (14th Nisan) 
the day of the month ? but, ‘ Must we not also 
take care to relate this lunar date to the solar 
year, t.e, take into account the equinox?’ Thus, 
at the opening of the fourth century, Christen- 
dom contained three varieties of practice as to 
the Paschal observance.” ! 


2 il. 42. 


46 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 
The Council decided that Easter Day should 


always be on a Sunday, but never at the same 
time as the feast of the Jews. Ifthe 14th Nisan 
fell on a Sunday, Easter Day was transferred 
to the following Sunday. We have an echo. 
of this ruling in English Church History, for 
the Synod of Whitby in 664 decided against 
the custom of the Celtic Church which, though 
not Quartodeciman, kept Easter on the 14th 
of Nisan if it fell on a Sunday. 

A century later Cyril of Alexandria! 
affrmed that the Council had authorised the 
Church of Alexandria to settle the date year 
by year. But this statement though confirmed 
by Pope Leo? in 453 is doubtful. Rome con- 
tinued to place the equinox on March 18, and 
Alexandria more correctly on March 21, as we 
do. The fame of Egyptian mathematicians 
stood high, but there is something more than 
correct calculation in the famous series of festal 
letters with which Athanasius throughout his 
long episcopate informed his people and 
enriched Christian literature. 


Tue Canons 


The Council then proceeded to draw up a 
series of some twenty Canons, dealing with 
current difficulties. 

1 Ep. lxxxvii., written in 437. 2 Ep. cxxi. [A.D. 453]. 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 47 


They began with disputed points of clerical 
discipline. They denied admission to Holy 
Orders to those who voluntarily mutilated 
themselves, to neophytes, to the untested, to 
the lapsed. They rebuked clerical laxity and 
forbade the inferior clergy to wander from 
place to place, or to practise usury, and com- 
mented on the forwardness of deacons! ‘They 
asserted that the deacons had no authority to 
celebrate, nor should they “ touch the Eucharist” 
(i.e. communicate) before the bishops did so, 
e.g. when a bishop was present without 
celebrating. 

In another series they dealt equally faithfully 
with bishops. ‘They assumed the adoption by 
the Church of the civil divisions of the Empire. 
In each province the bishops had drawn to- 
gether, and he whose see was in the metropolis 
became the chief bishop of the province, as we 
say Metropolitan. In each diocese or aggre- 
gate of provinces the bishop of the capital 
became Exarch, or as he was afterwards called 
Patriarch. Canon 4 laid down that in the 
election of a bishop all his comprovincials 
should concur. In their synodical letter the 
Council also recognised the choice of the people 
as a condition and assumed the testimony of 
the clergy. To guard against secret consecra- 
tions such as the Meletians had carried out 


1 Canons 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 16-18. 


48 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


they required three consecrators, with the 
assent of the comprovincials confirmed by the 
Metropolitan. 

Canon ¢ laid down that cases of excom- 
munication should be reviewed by Provincial 
Synods held twice every year. One should be 
held in Lent, that they might enjoy an Easter 
Communion unspoilt by ill-will ! 

Canon 6 begins with the principle : “ Let 
the ancient customs prevail.”” The Bishop of 
Alexandria had jurisdiction throughout Egypt, 
Libya, and Pentapolis, including five provinces 
of which he was sole Metropolitan. The 
reason given in support of his authority is 
“since this is also customary for the Bishop 
in Rome.” But they do not state what the 
Roman sphere was. Later, Latin versions 
made the Canon begin with the words : ‘‘ The 
Roman Church has always had the primacy.” 
The Roman legate at Chalcedon, Paschasinus, 
when he quoted this, was at once confronted 
with the Greek original—to his dismay, for he 
could not read Greek! The clause was 
officially withdrawn, for it did not appear in the 
Ecclesiastical Canons of Dionysius Exiguus 
in A.D. 520. The Roman sphere appears to 
mean the provinces of central and southern 
Italy with the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and 
Sicily. It is clear, as Bright says, that the 
First Oecumenical Council knew nothing of the 


CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 49 


doctrine of Papal supremacy. In any case 
the claim to primacy (primatus) meant patri- 
archal authority such as the Alexandrian see 
had in Egypt. It was decreed that Antioch 
should rank as the third see, and in Canon 7 
an honorary precedence was given in Pales- 
tine to the see of Aelia, i.e. Jerusalem, re- 
serving to the metropolis Caesarea its proper 
dignity. 

Other canons, 8, 11-14, 19, deal with diffi- 
culties caused by schism and heresy. Duchesne 
says that there were Novatianists to be met 
with, more or less, throughout Asia Minor, 
and the terms offered were conciliatory, as 
regards the admission of the laity to communion. 
But Novatianist clerics coming over to the 
Church must be reordained and give a written 
promise that they will communicate with the 
twice-married and with repentant lapsed. <A 
Novatianist bishop, as was the case with 
Meletius, was allowed his title without jurisdic- 
tion, out of regard to the principle that there 
may not be two bishops in one city. The 
followers of Paul of Samosata should be re- 
baptised, and the clergy reordained. As Kidd 
says: ‘“‘ The Council required right faith as well 
as right ‘form’ and ‘ matter’ for the validity 
of the sacraments.” 4 

Provision was made for those who had 


SU 45s 


50 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


lapsed under the tyranny of Licinius, and 
penances were prescribed. ‘The lapsed are to 
stand among the Hearers for two years, they 
are to be Kneelers for seven years, and then for 
two years take part (the technical term is: 
Co-standers) with the people in the prayers of 
the Eucharist but. apart from oblation, .e., 
without communion. 

Canon 15 forbade the translation of bishops 
from one see to another, but apparently allowed 
previous translations, as of Eustathius to 
Antioch and of Eusebius to Nicomedia, nor 
was the canon regarded when he was trans- 
lated again to Constantinople! 

Finally, Canon 20 decrees standing at the 
Eucharist on the Lord’s Day from Easter to 
Whitsuntide. ‘The custom that a priest should 
stand for his own Communion is a relic of 
this. 

It is strange that this practice should have 
been dropped, but the decisions of Councils on 
faith have been regarded as more binding 
than those on discipline. 

We must note that one rule which was pro- 
posed was not passed by the Council—that 
persons in holy orders should not be allowed 
to live as married men. It was opposed by 
the revered monk, Paphnutius, who upheld the 
“ancient tradition ”’ which forbade men already 

1 F. E. Scudamore, Notitia Eucharistica, 1872, 607. 





CREED AND CANONS OF COUNCIL 51 


ordained to marry. The yet larger liberty 
which our Church adopted is based on the 
experience of centuries. As Canon Lacey 
says : “‘ The ordinance of God is justified by 
experience, alike in the order of nature and 
in the order of grace.”41 England would be 
indeed impoverished without the clerical homes 
in which the influence of a good wife and 
mother radiates through a parish and doubles 
the influence of her husband. 

Duchesne-writes : “Such is the ecclesias- 
tical legislation of Nicaea, legislation without 
synthetic character, entirely determined by 
circumstances, as is always the case with the 
legislation of the councils. It represented 
certainly not the general regulation of ecclesi- 
astical relations, but simply the solution of a 
certain number of cases to which the attention 
of the assembled members happened to have 
been called. . Up to that time the Church had 
existed either upon unwritten traditions or 
upon collections of rules claiming the authority 
of the apostles or their disciples, but without 
any title which could be verified. The Councils 
of Elvira and of Arles were never acknowledged 
in the East ; those of Ancyraand Neo-Caesarea 
waited a long time before they were recognised 
in the West; the canons of Nicaea were 
accepted everywhere from the first, and were 

1 Marriage in Church and State, p. 58. 


52 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


everywhere placed at the head of the authentic - 
records of ecclesiastical law.”’ 4 

On July 25 the Emperor gave a banquet in 
honour of his Vicennalia, or twentieth anni- 
versary of his accession. Eusebius gives a_ 
vivid account of its magnificence and comments 
on the strange feeling with which as the bishops 
passed the guards of the palace on the way to 
the banqueting hall they could see “ the glint 
of arms ” without the fear of former days. He 
also records ? and, as Kidd ° drily remarks, “it 
is comforting to human fraility,” that all the 
bishops were present at the dinner though they 
had not all been present at the debates. 

The Emperor distributed princely gifts and 
on another day exhorted them, in a very 
_ practical farewell speech, to mutual forbearance, 
concord and unanimity for the common cause. 
“ Be like wise physicians, who treat different 
cases with discrimination, and are all things 
to all. And now farewell, and pray earnestly 
for me.” 

1 Karly Hist. i. 120. FG Hie Ge 
2 ii. 32. 


CHAPTER III 


Reaction: ‘* ATHANASIUS AGAINST 
THE WorRLD’”’ 


In the discussions of the great council 
Arianism had been met at every point: its 
claim to be logical, its arguments from Holy 
Scripture, and its appeal to tradition. For 
many years to come the support of the Western 
Church was unanimous, but we must remember 
that the West was very ignorant of Eastern 
affairs. Even in the East the Creed became a 
watchword which remained unchallenged until 
its chief defenders had been on various pre- 
texts deposed from their sees. And yet, as 
Gwatkin said, in words which have been often 
quoted : “ The victory of Nicaea was rather a 
surprise than a solid conquest. As it was not 
the spontaneous and deliberate purpose of the 
bishops present (almost all Eastern, it must be 
noticed), but a revolution which a minority had 
forced through by sheer strength of clearer 
Christian thought, a reaction was inevitable 
as soon as the half-convinced conservatives 


returned home.”’ 
4 G4. 


54 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


This use of the term ‘‘ conservative ”’ needs 
explanation. As Bishop Robertson says: “‘ The 
Nicene party were in a hopeless minority in 
Asia Minor and but little stronger in Syria. 
The indefiniteness of the mass of episcopal - 
Opinion justifies the title ‘ conservative,’ but 
their conservatism was of the empirical or short- 
sighted kind, prone to acquiesce in things as 
they are, hard to arouse to a sense of a great 
crisis, reluctant to step out of its groove. If by 
conservative we mean action which really tends 
to preserve the vital strength of an institution, 
then Athanasius and the leaders of Nicaea were 
the only conservatives.” 1 

If the Synod of Antioch be accepted the first 
part of this statement must be revised. Its 
list of bishops shows far more support in Asia 
Minor and Syria for Alexander than we had 
suspected. And this, if a fact, would influence 
Constantine. He was more concerned to 
promote peace than to discover truth. In the 
light of the new evidence we can discern the 
effect of his policy in stimulating a reaction, 
which if the Church had been left free to settle 
its own affairs would never have become so 
dangerous. The “ revolution” involved in the 
insertion of the terms ‘“‘ from the substance of 
the Father,’”’ and “of one substance,” into a 
formula of faith intended as a test of orthodoxy 

1 P, xxxv. 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 55 


for bishops, was a revolution in the method 
of teaching but not a departure from the old 
faith. 

It seems that Constantine called together 
certain members of the synod in the year 
A.D.327. Schwartz! has shown that Athanasius 
dates the progress of events correctly from the 
later session. But Duchesne? points out that 
Eusebius of Caesarea speaks only of an invi- 
tation to the Egyptians, “‘ who continued in the 
midst of universal peace to wage war on each 
other.” Eusebius of Nicomediaand Theognis, 
who welcomed party leaders whether Arians 
or Meletians, and were banished by Con- 
stantine, who would brook no interference with 
his policy, were now restored. We can trace 
from this date the growing influence of Eusebius 
of Caesarea, whose learning and eloquence had 
a great fascination. To him the Emperor 
turned more and more for correct copies of the 
Scriptures and for advice in his schemes of 
Church building. Asa politician he would not 
retrace his steps, but he knew that every law 
gets its meaning from the way in which it is 
carried out. Since his “work of peace” at 
Nicaea did not meet the requirements of the 
common sense of the East, though he demanded 
the letter of obedience to the creed, he was 


1 Nachrichten, 1911, p. 382. its IRF Me 
3 FG. Tis 23. 


56 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


ready to sacrifice its spirit. An Arian priest 
recommended to him by his sister Constantia 
seems to have been instrumental in securing 
the recall of Eusebius of Nicomedia and 
Theognis within two years. They had after 
all signed the creed, and were required to 
profess adhesion to its teaching. 

When Eusebius of Nicomedia returned in 
A.D. 327, a dangerous intrigue was at once 
begun to remove the chief defenders of the 
Nicene faith. Eustathius of Antioch and Mar- 
cellus were marked out for attack, and to them 
was added Athanasius, who became Bishop of 
Alexandria on June 8, 328. Lichtenstein says 
truly that Eusebius and Athanasius became the 
leaders on the two sides, for Athanasius was the 
cleverest theological advocate arrayed against 
him 

Athanasius had been Alexander’s right hand. 
As a deacon he attended the Council of Nicaea 
and took a prominent part in some of the 
debates. But his influence there must not be 
exaggerated. ‘There is no proof that he sug- 
gested the term Homo-ousios, although he was 
always loyal to it. By birth and education he 
was a Greek, a Greek in noble thoughts and 
philosophic insight, an orator and a statesman. 

Eustathius had been involved in a literary 
controversy with Eusebius of Caesarea, who 

. Pad. 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 57 


was horrified at his association with the 
Sabellian Marcellus! Eusebius of Nicomedia, 
having flattered Constantine into sending him 
with Theognis to see the new church built in 
Jerusalem, was received as a friend in Antioch. 
But as soon as he reached Jerusalem he plotted 
with his namesake and other Arian bishops to 
holdasynod at Antioch on their return journey, 
at which they brought a charge of unchas- 
tity against Eustathius, which was generally 
disbelieved, and of course an accusation of 
Sabellianism (Socrates). Probably the decisive 
charge was a complaint of dishonour done to 
the Empress-Mother Helena She had a 
special devotion to the Martyr Lucian, and 
had built a magnificent church in his honour. 
Eustathius seems to have used indiscreet words. 
Later on Ambrose said that she had been in 
early years a servant at an inn. If Eustathius 
said anything of the kind it would be a case of 
lése-majesté. He was deposed and brought 
before Constantine, who banished him to 
Trajanopolis, accompanied by a number of 
priests and deacons. He died in exile, as 
Chrysostom says, “‘ entombed in the hearts of 
the people of Antioch.”? He was a friend 
of Hosius* and it seems strange that the 


1 Athanasius, Hist. Ar. 4. 
2 Raven, Apollinarianism, p. 118. 
8 Hilary, Frag. 14. 


58 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


Council of Sardica could do nothing for him. 
Probably the political charge was the reason. 

There was dangerous unrest in Antioch, and 
when Eulalius, who was made bishop, soon 
afterwards died, Eusebius of Caesarea was 
proposed as his successor. He was probably 
wise in declining the honour, for which he was 
highly praised by Constantine. But we may 
gather that he hankered after the position, and 
his hint that he would have brought them 
peace fits in with the suggestion that he had 
been a candidate in a.D. 324. 

Eusebius of Nicomedia now took in hand the 
rehabilitation of Arius. His tenacity of purpose 

_Wwas amazing and his cleverness is shown in 
his recognition of Constantine’s true position, 
committed to keep the Nicene formula sacro- 
sanct, while he received back Arius on the 
strength of a general recognition of the synod. 

So Eusebius wrote to Athanasius to ask him 
to receive Arius back, but this friendly overture 
was met by a stern refusal. He then entered 
on a campaign of slander in coalition with the 
Meletians. 

Three Meletian bishops appeared before the 
Emperor in Nicomedia and accused Athanasius 
of taxing Egyptians to provide linen vest- 
ments. ‘Two presbyters from Alexandria at 


1 Ath.c. Ar. 59: There was no fellowship for the Christoma- 
chian (=fighting against Christ) heresy with the Catholic Church. 


’ 
- eee 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 59 


once refuted the charge. But the Emperor 
summoned him to Nicomedia, where he was 
accused of sending a purse of gold to a rebel 
called Philumenus. This again was refuted, 
and the Emperor went on with the third charge 
about the broken chalice. 

One Ischyras, whom the presbyter Colluthus, 
when he broke away with schism before a.p. 
324, had taken upon himself to ordain, had 
been then deposed in the presence of Hosius. 
But it was now asserted that he had officiated 
at a certain hamlet and that the presbyter 
Macarius, whom Athanasius had sent to inquire 
into the matter, had found him in the act of 
celebration, had thrown down the altar, broken 
the chalice and burnt the books. Athanasius 
had a crushing reply ready. ‘There was no 
church in the village, it was not the Lord’s 
day, so there was no chalice there, for there 
was no Eucharist. Ischyras was found ill in 
bed, and his father had promised that he 
would not continue to officiate. Both in person 
and by. letter he had confessed the plot and 
then joined the Meletians. Constantine was 
satisfied, and wrote a letter to the Catholics of 
Alexandria denouncing the “ cabals”’ against 
their archbishop. 

When Athanasius had returned home another 
charge was made of murdering a Meletian 
bishop called Arsenius, and of keeping his 


60 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


hand for purposes of magic. A dead man’s 
hand was produced in a box, and the alarm 
which was generally felt about magic stirred 
the Emperor to summon Athanasius to appear 
before Dalmatius, a prince of his house, at 
Antioch. Athanasius sent a deacon to find 
Arsenius, and he was at last discovered in Tyre, 
where he was identified by Bishop Paul. 
Constantine on hearing of it stopped the trial 
and wrote to Athanasius that any further plots 
of the Meletians would be dealt with “ not 
according to the ecclesiastical, but according 
to the civil laws." John Arcaph, the head of 
the Meletians, confessed his share in the plot, 
and Arsenius having apologised was taken back 
into communion with his clergy, and remained 
loyal. 

The Eusebians, however, returned to the 
charge and persuaded the Emperor that further 
enquiry was needed. Athanasius was summoned 
to appear before a Council in Caesarea in a.p. 
334, and refused. The next year great pre- 
parations were made to keep the Tricenna/ia, 
or thirtieth anniversary of Constantine’s acces- 
sion, together with the dedication of his 
church on Golgotha, and a preliminary gather- 
ing was held at Tyre in August, a.D. 335, to 
which Athanasius was summoned by a per- 
emptory order. He arrived with forty-eight 

1 Ath. Apol. c. Ar. § 68. 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 61 


bishops, and he had other friends, but they were 
outnumbered, and the Count Dionysius, whom 
Constantine sent “‘as protector to the Council,” 
did not do much to restrain the disorderly 
proceedings. ‘The old charges were trumped 
up, even that of the dead man’s hand, but 
Arsenius was produced alive and with two 
hands! Arcaph fled; but the rest were equal 
to the occasion, and said “* Magic again.’ } 
They even persuaded Dionysius to send a 
commission to the Mareotis to see if they could 
find out something more about the story of 
the broken chalice, taking Ischyras with them. 
The proceedings of the commission in Egypt 
were monstrous in the browbeating of witnesses, 
and yet they could not prove the story. On 
their return they “ concealed their minutes,” 
which were sent by the Eusebians to Pope 
Julius, and he gave them to Athanasius! Thus 
their treachery was revealed. 

The Egyptian bishops and the Bishop of 
Thessalonica protested against the unfairness 
of the proceedings and the Count admonished 
the Commissioners that they should act justly; 
but he failed to follow up his admonitions by 
deeds, and they reported as arranged. There- 
upon the Synod deposed Athanasius. But the 
Commission may have brought back some 


1 Kidd, ii. 61, who gives a graphic account of this whole 
period. 


62 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


more evidence to support the charge of epis- 
copal tyranny, which Kidd passes over with the 
sentence “It is possible that Athanasius in 
his early days and as a young bishop was a bit 
hard, especially on the Meletians ; and this 
would account not only for their bitterness, 
but for the conduct of Constantine towards 
him. He treated him as an impracticable 
person.” } 

In Papyrus 1914 in the British Museum, 
dated May—June, 335, the writer Callistus, a 
Meletian monk or cleric, gives an account of 
the sufferings of his fellow Meletians at the 
hands of Athanasius’ adherents and of Athana- 
sius himself. The editor, Mr. H. Idris Bell, 
writes of the historic interest of the new light 
which this letter affords on events preceding 
the Synod of Tyre. It has always been sus- 
picious that Athanasius having refuted the 
other charges says nothing about the accusation 
of violence. The reason is now clear: these 
charges were in part true. ‘That he was himself 
responsible for the violence of the soldiery on 
the evening of Pachon 24 Callistus does not 
state, and it is not probable, but we may doubt 
whether he took much trouble to prevent such 
outrages, and he is definitely charged with 
imprisoning the schismatics and other high- 
handed measures.?, Again: “ Both sides were 

ee 2 Jews and Christians in Egypt, 1924, p. 57. 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 63 


tarred with the same brush: the leaders of 
both were for the most part conspicuously 
lacking in the virtue of Christian charity 
towards their opponents ; both were apt to be 
disingenuous in their controversial methods, and 
while very quick to complain of persecution 
when it was directed against themselves, quite 
willing to practise it against others; and both 
were prepared to accept the help of the secular 
authority, though they denounced any reliance 
upon it by the opposite side.” 

However, before sentence was pronounced 
Athanasius escaped from Tyre and appeared 
before the Emperor, October 30, 335, when 
he was out riding, to demand that he should 
summon the bishops from Tyre and hear the 
case himself, 

In the meantime the bishops had met in 
council at Jerusalem after the Dedication 
Festival, had received Arius to communion, 
and informed the Bishops of Egypt of the 
deposition of Athanasius. Unjust as this 
sentence was it was hardly wise of Athanasius 
to ignore it and return to his see without pro- 
curing its reversal, for in later years it caused 
trouble. Only the leaders went to Constanti- 
nople and produced a new charge that he had 
threatened to hinder the yearly importation of 
corn from Alexandria to Constantinople. 
“How could I,” he asked, “a poor man, and 


64 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


in a private station ?”’ “ You poor !”’ retorted 
Eusebius of Nicomedia, “ you are Bishop of 
Alexandria, a rich man and powerful, and able 
to do anything.” 4 

The Emperor cut short the hearing and 
banished Athanasius to Tréves. No doubt he 
was weary of him and hoped to establish peace. 
Athanasius quotes Constantine II as having 
said that his father wished to shield him from 
his enemies.2, Any way the younger Constantine 
received him kindly and supplied him with 
necessaries. 

Having got rid of Athanasius the Eusebians 
now turned their attention to Marcellus, who 
was indignant at their treatment of Athanasius 
and their reception of Arius, and refused to 
come to the Dedication Festival. ‘They accused 
him of disrespect to the Emperor, and made a 
great deal of a book which he had written 
against Asterius, an Arian sophist, who had 
lapsed in the persecution of Maximian and 
been restored by his master Lucian. Marcellus 
sent it to the Emperor and made the attack 
easy for his enemies. 

Asterius taught that the Son was made by 
the will of the Father and by His attribute the 
impersonal Wisdom. ‘The Son, therefore, was 
neither the Word nor the Wisdom, nor the 
Power of God; but only called so, as the locust 

1 Kidd, ii. 64. 2 Apol. c. Arianos, 87. 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 65 


and the palmer-worm are called the “ power ” 
of God. 

The treatise of Marcellus is only known to 
us through the quotations of his enemies, but 
there is little doubt that this teaching in oppo- 
sition to such naked Arianism came very near 
to Sabellianism. He taught that the Eternal 
Word is not Son, but being immanent in God 
came forth for the work of Creation and became 
Son at the Incarnation. ‘The Godhead in its 
entirety dwelt in many “after a bodily sort.” ? 
When His work is done the Son will render up 
the Kingdom to the Father that God may be 
all in all. The expansion of the Godhead, in- 
cluding its extension for the work of the Holy 
Spirit, will be followed by a corresponding 
contraction. 

His speculations were undoubtedly danger- 
ous, although Athanasius and Julius of Rome 
defended him and the Council of Sardica in 
A.D. 343. Hewas condemned and deposed, and 
in his place was elected Basil, a man of varied 
learning and blameless life, who became leader 
of the group known as semt-Arians. 

Arius was summoned to Constantinople, but 
died suddenly before he was admitted to 
communion. He was soon followed to the 
grave by the Emperor, who in his last days 
received baptism from Eusebius of Nicomedia. 

1 Kidd, ii. 65. 2 Frag. 16. 
F 


66 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


His character, it must be admitted, had 
many unpleasing qualities. Ele was no doubt 
superstitious and in his relations with the 
Church thoroughly worldly in his outlook, and 
at the mercy of flatterers and place-hunters. 
Yet on the whole he thoroughly deserves the 
praise which has been accorded to his legis- 
lation, and as Kidd puts it finely: ‘‘ The prince 
who was the first to see in Christianity the basis 
of a new social order may, if greatness be to 
know a great thing when you see it, be rightly 
allowed his name of Constantine the Great.” ! 
Constantine II took Athanasius with him 
when he went to meet his brothers in Pannonia, 
and Constantius was favourably impressed. 
But immediately after his return Athanasius 
had to meet new charges, and before long the 
Kusebians appointed a successor on the ground 
that he had been deposed and the see was vacant. 
Having failed to get recognition from the 
Bishop of Rome for their first candidate, Pistus, 
they consecrated Gregory and sent him to 
Egypt. The Bishop announced his appoint- 
ment and began to transfer the churches to 
Gregory’s friends. Athanasius escaped to 
Rome and was pronounced innocent by a synod 
which met in a.p. 340. Bishop Julius wrote 
an able letter defending him to the Eusebians, 


111.68. Athanasius speaks of him as “of blessed memory ”— 
Ad. Ep. Eg. 18. Hilary as “ of sacred memory ”—Frag. v. 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 67 


who gathered the next year, a.p. 341, for the 
dedication of Constantine’s Golden Church in 
Antioch. Constantius was present and ninety- 
seven bishops, many of them by no means 
Arians, but virtually orthodox. Hilary calls it 
a ““ synod of saints.” 

But they were duped by Eusebius of Nico- 
media, who played on their fears about Roman 
support given to Athanasius, and persuaded 
them that Athanasius was a criminal, so they 
confirmed the decrees of Tyre. He also 
ventured for the first time to attack Nicene 
doctrine, hoping that a new creed raised to the 
rank of the Nicene Creed might supplant it as 
a standard of doctrine. 

The Council produced four creeds: the 
first a vague statement suspiciously like the 
deception of Arius, though it begins with an 
absurd protest that they cannot be considered 
his followers because bishops cannot follow a 
priest | 

The second is the so-called Creed of Lucian, 
which is more probably founded on the old 
Creed of Cappadocia. It heaps up Scriptural 
phrases by which disciples of Origen thought 
to defend the Lord’s Divinity. It asserts the 
exact likeness of the Son to the Father’s 
essence. But it marks the beginning of a 
doctrinal reaction, in the omission of “‘ of one 
essence,” and in the ambiguity of the anathemas. 


58 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


Later on, however, it became a stepping-stone 
by which semi-Arians were able to come nearer 
to union with the Nicenes. 

Thirdly, a personal confession drawn up 
by Theophronius, Bishop of Tyana, against 
Marcellus satisfied one group, but not the 
Arianizers. 

Fourthly, the Arianizers met by themselves 
in the autumn and sent what is known as the 
Fourth Antiochene Creed to the Emperor 
Constans as the creed of the Council. It was 
in form a copy of the Nicene Creed but with 
weakened anathemas. Constantius was in- 
clined to Arianism, but he was occupied for 
some years with the Persian War, and they 
were afraid of Constans. Soon after the 
Council they lost their leader, Eusebius, who 
had been translated from Nicomedia to Con- 
stantinople. It is not easy to make out exactly 
his dogmatic position, as there is but little 
material to judge by. But Lichtenstein is - 
probably right in saying he did not go as far as 
the later Arians.1 He calls the nature of the 
Son inexpressible because unknowable. The 
Son is created in the likeness of His Creator, 
therefore God is also unknowable and not 
as Eunomius taught knowable. Lichtenstein 
thinks that he signed the Nicene Creed under- 


1 We do not find in his teaching the statement that the Son 
came to be from nothing. 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 69 


standing “of one essence’’ in the sense “ of 
like essence,’’ and prepared the way for the 
party afterwards known as Homoeans or those 
who confessed that the Son is “‘ of like essence.” 
In this sense we may venture to say that he 
was true to his convictions, but in character he 
appears as a master of intrigue, despicable, 
stooping to any means to gratify his revenge 
and advance himself and his friends. 

The long “ fight in the dark,” as Socrates 1 
calls it, had come to an end. The avowed aim 
of the Arians was now to displace the Nicene 
Creed. At the Council of Sardica in a.p. 343 
the Easterns withdrew to Philippopolis, re- 
newed the sentences of deposition against 
Athanasius and Marcellus, and added Hosius 
himself, the president, with Julius of Rome and 
others, finishing with the Fourth Antiochene 
Creed with added anathemas. But the Western 
bishops found Marcellus innocent and acquitted 
Athanasius, who persuaded them to be content 
with the Nicene Creed, not like those who were 
for ever wanting to try their hand at a new 
creed. They also passed some important 
Canons, but failed to pacify the Church, and 
the breach between East and West was widened. 

Three years more passed before Athanasius 
was permitted to return, “the people and 
all those in authority” streaming out “like 


Sri, Wat 


70 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


another Nile ’’ to meet him “a hundred miles ”’ 
and welcome him with banquets and illumina- 
tions. For ten years, the Golden Decade, he 
was left undisturbed. 

In the meantime Constantius, when he 
became sole Emperor, determined to get rid of 
the orthodox prelates who refused to recognise 
his Arian nominees. Liberius of Rome, 
Hosius, Hilary of Poictiers, soon to be the 
greatest ally of Athanasius in the West, were 
all evicted. 

Then came the turn of Alexandria. ‘The 
Duke Syrianus was sent and surrounded the 
church with sooo soldiers. Calmly taking 
his seat on the throne Athanasius had the 
deacon recite Psalm 136, the people taking up 
the refrain “‘ For His mercy endureth for ever.” 
The troops broke in, and some of the congre- 
gation lost their lives in the struggle to press 
through the crowd to arrest the bishop. But 
his friends got him away safely, and for six 
years, A.D. 356-362, he remained in hiding in 
the cells of the desert. But he was not idle 
with his pen. He wrote the famous Apology . 
to Constantius, the Apology for his flight, his 
history of the Arians, and the great Ovations. 
As Dr. Kidd has well said : ‘“‘ The Orations 
are still the mine from which all defenders 
of the Divinity of our Lord may seek their 
best material. They are distinguished by 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 71 


a rich use of Scripture ; by a firm grasp on 
primary truths, such as the unity of God and 
the reality of our Lord’s Divine Sonship ; by 
an equally clear insight into the way in which, 
bound up with the theological controversy, the 
religious interests of the soul are at stake, viz. 
the reality of redemption and grace, of our 
knowledge of God, of our fellowship with Him, 
and of our adoption as sons of God. ‘These 
things would not have been ours had not Christ 
imparted to us what was His own to give.” } 

Far away from his retreat, in the great world, 
a deadly feud was waged between rival sections 
of the Arian party. The semi-Arians tried 
to condemn Arianism without adopting the 
Homo-ousios and reunite the Church by conciliat- 
ing the West. But they were out-manceuvred 
by the Court party, who adopted a non-com- 
mittal formula—Homoios = “ Like” without 
the addition of ‘‘ substance,” and were called 
Homoeans. 

Their leader, Acacius, Bishop of Caesarea, 
was versatile. Gregory of Nazianzus calls 
him “ the tongue of the Arians,”’ but the ultra- 
Arians scorned him. Philostorgius, their 
historian, says that “his thoughts went one 
way and his tongue another.” 

The ultra-Arians, or nomoeans, as they 
came to be called, as saying that the Son was 


2 1. 144. 


72 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


“unlike the Father,’’ were frank where the 
earlier generation had been evasive. Their 
spokesman was Eunomius, of whom Theodoret 
said that ‘he changed theology into techno- 
logy.” He argued that God is pure Being, 
essentially simple and one, He is ingenerate 
and unoriginate. As simple and not complex 
He is perfectly intelligible and comprehensible. 
‘““T know God,” said Eunomius, “as well as 
He knows Himself.” As God is essentially 
unoriginate all that is generate or originate 
is foreign to God. The Son as generate or 
begotten, z.e. according to Eunomuus a creature, 
has it may be a moral resemblance to the Father 
but is essentially unlike Him. Huis preroga- 
tive consists in being the immediate work of 
the Father, whereas all the other creatures, 
including the Holy Spirit, are the work of the 
Son. Thusall mystery wascutout. Arianism 
ended in rationalism, and it was the discovery 
of this its true character in A.D. 357 which led 
to its decline. 

A small group of bishops, headed by Valens 
of Mursa, met at Sirmium and put out a 
manifesto which ‘“ drifted into Anomoeanism 
without using the term.” Hilary calls it “‘ the 
Blasphemy.” Gwatkin speaks of it as “‘ the 
turning point of the whole contest.” ‘‘ The 
Fusebian coalition fell to pieces the moment 

1 de Syn. ii. 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 73 


that Arianism ventured to have a policy of its 
own.”! But forthe moment it was triumphant. 
Even the aged Confessor Hosius signed it. 
But neither threats nor cajolery could prevail 
upon him to condemn Athanasius. Within 
a year Liberius also, Bishop of Rome, exiled 
to Berea, came to the end of his endurance and 
signed a compromising formula. Duchesne 
says: “It meant the abandonment of the 
position which the Pope had maintained 
hitherto with most signal distinction—a posi- 
tion for which he had braved the anger of the 
Emperor and the sorrows of exile. It was a 
weakening, a downfall.” 2 

‘The Blasphemy ”’ was approved at Antioch 
but condemned in Gaul, as at Ancyra at a 
semi-Arian Synod under Basil, Bishop of 
Ancyra, to whom the Emperor was willing to 
listen. He persuaded Constantius to with- 
draw his signature to “‘ the Blasphemy ” and 
to banish the leading Anomoeans. It must 
be acknowledged that the semi-Arians were 
persecutors but the Nicenes were not.? The 
semi-Arians having thus abused their victory 
were outwitted by Valens. They demanded 
a General Council, but Valens persuaded the 
Emperor that it would be less expensive if the 
Western Bishops met at Ariminum, and the 


1 Pp, 162. 2 Early Hist. ii. 226. 
8 Gwatkin, p. 167, n. 2. 


74. THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


Easterns at Seleucia. And he tricked them 
into agreeing to the preparation of an ambiguous 
formula which should do no harm to the 
Anomoeans and yet satisfy the Emperor. 

This was the famous Dated Creed, drawn 
up by Mark of Arethusa on Whitsun-Eve, 
May 22, 359. 

It was on the whole conservative: ‘“ We 
say that the Son is like the Father in all things,” 
but left loopholes for the Anomoeans. Basil 
added a note to his signature that by “ like”’ 
he meant “in all things, not only in will but in 
person and in existence and in essence.”” ‘The 
Nicenes were delighted with this, which they 
regarded as*‘asurrender at discretion.’ Valens 
wanted to omit “in all things,” but was com- 
pelled by Constantius to sign. 

In the summer of a.D. 359 some four 
hundred bishops assembled at Ariminum, of 
whom the majority were firm in defence of the 
Nicene Creed. ‘They rejected the Dated Creed, 
recommended by Valens as simple, Scriptural 
and approved by the Emperor! And they 
wrote a letter to Constantius insisting on ‘‘ No 
innovations,”’ which proves that it was Arians, 
not Catholics, who demanded council after 
council and creed after creed.1. The minority 
accepted the Dated Creed and both sides sent 
deputations to the Emperor. 

1 Kidd, ii. 167. 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 75 


Meanwhile, the Eastern bishops met at 
Seleucia. The majority were semi-Arians, but 
there were a few Nicenes, among whom was 
Hilary, ‘“‘a host in himself.” They held out 
against the Homoeans until the Quaestor, who 
was in charge for Constantius, dissolved the 
Council. 

The orthodox representatives at Ariminum 
who had been kept waiting at Adrianople were 
commanded to meet Valens at Nice in Thrace, 
a small town chosen “in hope of confusion with 
Nicaea.”” Weary of long delay they were 
induced to sign a revision of the Dated Creed 
which was now put forth as Nicene. Under 
extreme pressure most of them yielded. ‘‘ After 
all,is it Christianity you want or onlya formula? 
Which do you worship—Christ or the Homo- 
ousios?’’ But the Gallican bishops held out 
until tricked by the suggestion, “ Satisfy the 
Emperor by signing and add what you like.” 
They drew up a series of anathemas, Valens 
suggesting “‘ Anathema to those who say that 
the Son is a creature like other creatures,” 
which they signed without detecting the 
quibble !1_ Jerome says : ‘‘ The whole world 
groaned in astonishment to find itself Arian.”’ 

The same fate befel the deputation from 
Seleucia at Constantinople. Constantius drove 
the Anomoeans into exile, leaving the 

1 Kidd, ii. 172. 


76 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


Homoeans in command of the situation, and 
the semi-Arians after a long discussion with 
him late on the night of December 31, 359, 
surrendered. Constantius began the year of 
his tenth Consulate with his empire at peace ! 

Flushed with success the Homoeans held a 
council at Constantinople at which they de- 
posed the semi-Arians on charges of irregular 
conduct despite their signatures, filling their 
sees with Homoeans and even Anomoeans ! 

The outlook was dark indeed, but it was the 
darkness before the dawn. A reaction began 
in the West. Liberius recovered courage and 
refused to sign. 

In the East the Homoean supremacy lasted 
for twenty years. But great events were im- 
pending. In a.p. 360 Constantius died, 
having been baptised by Euzoius, one of the 
original Arian party, now Bishop of Antioch. 
Constantius was in many respects inferior to 
his father. He was small of stature, ignoble 
both in presence and character. He was 
pure in life, and a good soldier, and had respect 
for learning. But his conceit put him at the 
mercy of flatterers, and his piety did not pre- 
serve him from cold-blooded treachery, though 
‘“ he loved the ecclesiastical game.’’! 

Julian became Emperor. He loathed Chris- 
tianity, having been brought up at the court 

1 Gwatkin, p. 115. 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 77 


of Constantius, who had murdered his nearest 
relations. 

We cannot stay to consider Julian’s character 
nor his tragic failure, but it is for our purpose 
worth while to quote a specimen of the arid 
Arianism of the teacher to whom his religious 
education was entrusted, for it explains his 
bitter contempt for Christianity as he knew it. 

Aetius, by turns coppersmith, goldsmith, 
servant, physician, became a Christian sophist 
and wrote a treatise containing forty-seven 
couplets, of which the following is a specimen : 
‘Tf it is possible for the Un-begotten God to 
make the begotten become un-begotten both 
substances being unbegotten, they will not 
differ from each other as to independence. 
Why then should we say that the one is changed 
and the other changes it, when we will not allow 
that God produces [the Word] from nothing ?”’ 

We are not surprised that he left “the 
Galileans”’ to fight out their own quarrels, 
permitting the exiled bishops to return to 
their sees, only interfering once to banish 
Athanasius again because he had dared “ in his 
reign to baptize noble ladies,” and as “a man 
loaded with condemnations’”’ he could not 
return without a special order. He also made 
a law prohibiting Christians from the study of 
heathen literature. But he died in a.p. 363, 
of a wound received in a skirmish on the Persian 


78 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


frontier, and with him perished his vain dream 
of reformed heathenism. 

We must return to Athanasius. When he 
heard of Basil’s manifesto and of the hopeful 
beginning of the Council of Ariminum he 
turned to the semi-Arians as brethren who 
differed from him only about the use of a word, 
who really meant what he meant. As Gwatkin 
says : “‘ No sooner is he cheered with the news 
of hope than the importunate jealousies of forty 
years are hushed in a moment, as though the 
Lord had spoken peace to the tumult of the 
grey old exile’s troubled soul.” And the 
appeal of his treatise “On the Councils,” in 
which “he rises above himself,” won a great 
response from semi-Arians who came over to 
the Nicene side and accepted the Homo-ousios, 
among them the future leaders in the East. 
Basil, soon to be Bishop of Caesarea in Cappa- 
docia, quoted words of Athanasius to justify 
his own action: “He that is essentially 
God is co-essential with Him that is essentially 
God. . . . If I am to state my own opinion, 
I accept “like in essence’ with the addition of 
‘exactly ’ as identical in sense with ‘ co-essential ’ 
but ‘exactly like’ [without ‘essence’] I 
suspect. . . . Accordingly, since ‘ co-essential ’ 
is the term less open to abuse, on this ground I, 
too, adopt it.” ? 

a’ P. 180. BES IRON 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 79 


Athanasius followed this up at the Council 
of Alexandria, in a.p. 362 by an attempt to 
mediate between those who had come to speak 
of three Hypostaseis in the sense of Persons in 
the Godhead, and those who followed the 
Nicene Council and still made Hypostasis = 
Ousia = Substance, the common deity of all 
the Persons of the Trinity. Both parties were 
orthodox : it was only necessary to state in 
which sense they used the term. 

They also endeavoured to restore peace in 
Antioch by reconciling the stalwart followers 
of Eustathius under their Priest Paulinus to 
the semi-Arian Bishop Meletius. Meletius 
immediately after his appointment had preached 
an orthodox sermon for which he was promptly 
deposed, so that there was every reason to 
accept him and his congregation, which was 
much the larger, on their profession of the 
Nicene Faith. Unfortunately, immediately 
after the Council the firebrand Lucifer of 
Cagliari went off to Antioch and took upon 
himself to consecrate Paulinus as a rival bishop. 
When Jovian succeeded Julian he sent cordial 
letters to Athanasius inviting him to resume 
his office and draw up a statement of the Faith. 
Athanasius summoned a synod and framed a Sy- 
nodal Letter with which he at once set off to An- 
tioch, where he was graciously received, while the 
rival Bishop of Alexandria, Lucius, was rebuffed. 


80 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


But he was unable to compose the schism. 
Paulinus had consecrated Diodore, so we are 
informed by Rufinus, to the see of Tyre, 
and Meletius not unnaturally resented this as 
he resented the consecration of Paulinus him- 
self. ‘The schism continued for many years, 
Paulinus receiving the support of Egypt and 
the West, Meletius of the East. 

On the death of Jovian the Empire was 
divided between Valens, who was an Arianizer, 
and Valentinian, who was Catholic and tolerant. 
The Homoean tyranny was continued in the 
East, and Athanasius was exiled for the last 
time. But after four months he was reinstated. 
Valens yielded to the desire of the united 
Christian population, and for the remaining 
seven years of his episcopate he was left 
undisturbed. 

On May 2, 373, he passed to his rest, having 
named and consecrated his friend Peter as his 
successor. 

Gregory of Nazianzus, writing as a_ well- 
informed contemporary, describes his episcopal 
character as uniting varied excellencies, ‘‘ gentle- 
ness without weakness, gravity in rebuke with- 
out asperity, vigour in general administration 
and assiduity in spiritual duties, a comprehensive 
grasp of his work as a whole, and a discrimina- 
ting attention to special cases.” 


1 Or. xxi. 


ATHANASIUS AGAINST THE WORLD 81 


With this we may compare Harnack’s 
considered opinion : “ In the midst of all this 
Athanasius alone in the East stood like a rock 
inthe sea. If we measure him by the standard 
of his time we can discover nothing ignoble 
or mean about him. The favourite charge of 
hierarchical imperiousness has something naive 
about it. His stern procedure in reference 
to the Meletians was a necessity, and an 
energetic bishop who had to represent a great 
cause could not be anything else but im- 
perious.’’ 1 ‘There are passages in his writings 
which we wish that Athanasius had not written. 
His abuse of Arians and of Constantius is vul- 
gar and coarse. But as Bishop Robertson says, 
“he was human, and exasperated by inhuman 
vindictiveness and perfidy.” 2? We can set 
against them others in which his protest against 
the principle of religious persecution as alien 
to the mind of the Church, his sympathy for 
the poor, his delight in the bond of union 
found in a common faith, his joy in the presence 
of God with His servants in loneliness, and 
his words about the future joy when heaven 
would be to sufferers for the truth as a calm 
haven to sailors after a storm, speak to us of the 
depth of his religious convictions, and reveal 
the secret of his invincible constancy. 

1 Hist. of Dogma, iv. 62. 2 Athanasius, p. 267. 


G 


CHARA ERSLY: 
Our NIcEeNE CREED 


Our Nicene Creed is a Baptismal Creed to 
which a section has been added from the first 
Nicene Creed to refute Arianism, with a phrase, 
‘“ whose Kingdom shall have no end,”’ to guard 
against the error of Marcellus. And the 
teaching on the Holy Spirit has been enlarged 
to meet the Arian assertion that He, like the 
Son, was created, a point which came more 
prominently into view in the last phase of the 
controversy. 

Macedonius, who succeeded Eusebius as 
Bishop of Constantinople, when he was deposed 
in 360, retired to a suburb and became the 
teacher of a party called after his name, 
Macedonians, who believed with him that 
“the Son is God, like in all things to the 
Father, even in essence,’’! but that the Holy 
Spirit “ had no claim to the Divine honours 
which were attributed to the Son, being but 
a minister and a servant, as the holy angels may 
without offence be called.”” Their grave, ascetic 

1 Socr. H.E. iv. 27. 


OUR NICENE CREED 83 


manners and persuasive eloquence gained them 
many adherents. 

After 360, when Athanasius appealed to all 
semi-Arians to adopt the term homo-ousios as 
guarding the sense of Scripture, many baptismal 
Creeds were enlarged in Jerusalem, Antioch, 
Cappadocia, and Mesopotamia. 

“The faith of the Nicene Council is related 
to our Nicene Creed as a bud from a garden 
rose to the wild rose stock into which it 1s 
orafted. ‘The rose grower with cunning hand 
unites the beauty of colour and form which he 
has cultivated to the hardy nature and vigorous 
srowth of the wild plant. Nicene theological 
terms were inserted into the Baptismal Creed of 
Jerusalem. Thus the improved theology was 
grafted into the stock of the old historic faith.” 3 

It is to the credit of an English scholar, 
Jacob Ussher, “‘ the founder of scientific in- 
vestigation of the creeds,’ * that he was the 
first to point out that our Nicene Creed was not 
a revision of the first Nicene Creed made by 
the Council of Constantinople in a.p. 381, 
because it had already appeared in a treatise 
of Epiphanius written in a.p. 374, and he 
perceived that there was some relation to the 
Creed of Cyril of Jerusalem.? But it was 


1 Introd. to Creeds, p. 98. 
2 Dorholt, Das Taufsymbolum der alten Kirche. 
3 Ussher, De Romanae Ecclesiae Symbolo, Works, 1832, Vil. 314. 


84 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


another English scholar, Hort, who in his 
famous Dissertations pierced to the heart of the 
mystery and worked out the theory that we 
have Cyril’s revision made after his return 
from exile in A.D. 362. | 

Hort’s theory commended itself to the great 
majority of scholars both in England and on 
the Continent. Kattenbusch was enthusiastic: 
“The only wonder is that it had not been 
discovered before.’”” Another German scholar, 
Kunze, has been able to present it in a greatly 
improved form. But it has received searching 
criticism from a Russian, Professor Lebedeff, 
and in England from Bishop Gibson? and Dr. 
Badcock.* ‘Their arguments will be duly con- 
sidered, but for the convenience of the general 
reader, I will tell the whole story in a narrative 
form. It is convenient to use the symbol N 
for the Creed of the Nicene Council, and C for 
our Nicene Creed, as in some way connected 
with the Council of Constantinople, rather than 
the cumbrous words Nicaenum and Constantino- 
politanum or the hybrid term Nicene-Constan- 
tinopolitan !_ C appears for the first time in a 
book called The Anchored One, which Epiph- 
anius, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, wrote for 
the instruction of some priests and laymen of 
Syedra in Pamphylia. ‘They had appealed to 


tS. 1Via893 2 The Three Creeds, p. 169. 
&, F.T Sv-Xvil.. 205, 


OUR NICENE CREED 85 


him for an exposition of the Catholic doctrine 
of the Trinity. Hs title promised an anchor of 
the soul to men who had been tossed about on 
a stormy sea of doubt. He introduces it with 
the words: 

“This is the holy faith of the Holy Catholic 
Church, as the one holy Virgin of God received 
it from the holy Apostles of the Lord to keep: 
and thus every person who is in preparation for 
the holy order of baptism must learn it: they 
must learn it themselves, and teach it expressly, 
as the one Mother of all, of you and of us, 
proclaims it, saying: ‘ We believe in one God,’ 
etc.” I will quote the form in parallel columns 
with Cyril’s earlier creed. Epiphanius adds the 
anathemas of the Nicene Council and concludes 
with the words: 

“And this faith was handed down from the 
holy Apostles and in the Church [in] the holy 
city [and] from all the holy bishops together 
above the number of 310.” ! 

The text appears to need some emendation. 
There is only one MS. extant. Dr. Bindley’s 
proposal to insert [and] would give a consistent 
and true statement—namely, that the creed was 
composed of Apostolic, Jerusalem, and Nicene 
teaching. Dr. Badcock suggests [in]. 

Epiphanius follows it up (c. cxxi) with 
an elaborate paraphrase of N which seems to 


1 Ovecumenical Documents, ii. 302. 


86 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


have been his own composition for the use of 
converts from heresy. It is verbose and wear1- 
some. Now this creed is said to be in accord- 
ance with the creed of the holy fathers before 
set forth. According to Dr, Badcock, the creed 
in cxx. ought therefore to be N, and the fact 
that it is followed by the Nicene anathemas 
points to the same conclusion. They follow an 
enlargement of N in the Creed of Damascus, 
and in a form which Badcock calls E, to be 
explained presently, but he held that it would 
be “ contrary to all rules” to append them to a 
baptismal creed. I fail to feel the force of this 
argument. The word “rules” seems to me 
misleading. What “rules”? The ius /itur- 
gicum of a bishop allowed free scope for the 
improvement of a baptismal creed, and he was 
certainly free to add the precise condemna- 
tion of erroneous phrases which the Nicene 
anathemas gave and he here adapts. He may 
as well add them for the instruction of the 
candidates who are to be taught expressly as 
“the one Mother” proclaims. Badcock says 
it is difficult to see how this could apply to 
anything except the Nicene formula, and notes 
that in the Paxarium, which is later than the 
Ancoratus, the only creed quoted by Epiphanius 
is that of Nicaea. This is true, but the con- 
nection is different. Epiphanius is there 
concerned with conciliar creeds, here with 


OUR NICENE CREED 87 


baptismal. And the strong words about “ our 
Mother Church of Jerusalem,” which I shall 
quote below from the Synodical Letter of the 
Council of Constantinople in a.p. 382, seem 
to justify the conclusion that Epiphanius is 
referring here to the Mother Church in the 
Holy City Jerusalem. 

I repeat “‘ What rules?”’ The only rules 
for students of the history of the creeds, if that 
is what Badcock has in mind, are the obliga- 
tions (1) to quote evidence accurately, which 
I am glad to acknowledge that he does, and 
(2) to avoid pressing our own theories about it 
too far, wherein I am afraid all of us are at 
times guilty. 

It must be admitted that a plausible case 
can be made out for the supposition that the 
text of C is here an interpolation. We find later 
on that the texts of N were constantly corrupted 
in the MS. by assimilation to the text of C. 
But the positive evidence that C was brought 
up at the Council of Constantinople in a.p. 381 
is so strong that I cannot believe it is impossible 
that Epiphanius should have quoted it in 
A.D. 374. 

We must now turn to the relation of C to 
the Jerusalem Creed of the Bishop Cyril, who 
about the year a.p. 348 was catechist in 
Constantine’s church on Golgotha. In his 
famous catechetical lectures he reveals himself 


88 THE’ COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


as a man of practical piety concerned with the 

moral training of his hearers. He scarcely 

glances at the great dogmatic controversy of 

the day, but the following words prove that 

even if he was afraid of the Homo-ousios, yet in 

teaching he allowed all that it meant, a veritable, 
ersonal, and yet eternal Sonship.1 

‘* Believe also in the Son of God, the one and 
only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, God begotten 
of God, Life begotten of Life, Light begotten 
' of Light, in all respects like Him that begot, 
not having begun to be in time, but begotten 
of the Father. Eternally and incomprehensively 
before all worlds, the insubstantial personally 
subsisting Wisdom and Power and Righteous- 
ness of God.” ? 

When Cyril became a bishop he was the 
nominee of the intriguer Acacius, but he be- 
longed to the followers of the semi-Arian 
Meletius, and was exiled in a.p. 360. Hort 
suggests that when he returned from exile in 
A.D. 362-364 he would find a natural occasion 
for the revision of the public creed by the 
skilful insertion of some of the conciliar 
language, including the term which proclaimed 
the restoration of full communion with the 
champions of Nicaea, and other phrases or 
clauses adopted for impressing on the people 
positive truth. 

1 Bright, Age of the Fathers, i. 249. 2 Cat. iv. p. 7. 


OUR NICENE CREED 89 


THE CREED OF JERUSALEM 
IN A.D. 347 


Cyril, Cat. vi-xviii. 


I 


(1) We believe in one God, 
the Father Almighty, maker 
of heaven and earth, and of all 
things visible and invisible : 


Il 


(2) And in one Lord Jesus 
Christ, the only begotten Son 
of God, begotten of His Father, 
very God, before all worlds, 
by whom all things were made. 


(3) and was incarnate, and 
lived among men as man. 


(4) was crucified and buried 


(5) and rose again the third 
day, 

(6) and ascended into heaven 
and sat at the right hand of the 
Father, 


THE CREED OF EPIPHANIUS 
IN A.D. 374 


Ancoratus, C. CXXi. 


I 


(1) We believe in one God, 
the Father Almighty, maker 
both of heaven and earth, and 
of all things visible and in- 
visible. 


II 


(2) And in one Lord Jesus 
Christ, the only begotten Son 
of God, begotten of His Father 
before all worlds—that is of the 
substance of the Father—Light 
of Light, very God of very 
God, begotten not made, being 
of one substance with the 
Father ; by whom all things 
were made, both those in heaven 
and those on earth ; 

(3) Who for us men and for 
our salvation came down from 
heaven, and was incarnate of 
the Holy Ghost and the Virgin 
Mary and lived among men 
as man ; 

(4) and was crucified for us 
under Pontius Pilate, and 
suffered and was buried. 

(5) and rose again the third 
day according to the Scriptures, 

(6) Andascended intoheaven 
and sitteth at the right hand 
of the Father, 


go THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


(7) and is coming in glory 
to judge the quick and the dead, 
whose kingdom shall have no 
end. 


III 


(8) And in one Holy Ghost, 
the Paraclete, who spake to the 
prophets, 


(10) And in one baptism of 
repentance for the remission 
of sins, 

(9) And in one Holy Catholic 
Church, 

(11) And in the resurrection 
of the flesh, 

(12) And in the life eternal. 


(7) And is coming again to 
with glory to judge the quick 
and the dead ; whose kingdom 
shall have no end. 


III 


(8) And in the Holy Ghost, 
the Lord and Giver of life, who 
proceedeth from the Father, 
who with the Father and the 
Son together is worshipped 
and glorified ; who spake by 
the prophets, 

(9) Inone Holy Catholicand 
Apostolic Church. 

(10) We acknowledge one 
baptism for the remission of 
sins he 
(11) We look for the resur- 
rection of the dead, 

(12) And the life of the world 
to come. 


There are three important changes which 


tend to show that Cyril was the author of this 
revision: (1) The change from sat to sitteth in 
Art. 6 agrees with his teaching that the Son was 
from all eternity sitting at the right hand of 
the Father and not only after the Ascension 
(2) The change from iz (glory) to with in 
Art. 7 is in accordance with his preference.? 
(3) The change from (resurrection of) the flesh 
to of the dead agrees with his interpretation of 
the clause and was his habitual phrase.® 

1 Cat. Xi. 17 3 XIV. 17-30. 


2 Cat. xv. 3. * Cat. xviii, 1-21, 


OUR NICENE CREED gi 


Other changes may be traced to the Creed 
of the Apostolic Constitutions, the Seventh Book 
of which was put together by an unknown 
writer at Antioch c. a.D. 375, so that it supplies 
evidence that one or more writers of that 
Church used such phrases at, or soon after, the 
time when Cyril may be supposed to have made 
his revision. ‘They are Art. 3, “from heaven,” 
“of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary’; 
Art. 4, “‘for us under Pontius Pilate,” “ suf- 
fered’’; Art. 7, ‘again (with glory).” 

The Mesopotamian Creed supplies a parallel 
to the omission of “ of repentance ”’ in Art. Io. 
‘The Paraclete’’ seems to have been omitted 
because of the accompanying enlargement. 

Epiphanius had been for some time in 
Jerusalem. He shows knowledge of circum- 
stances relating to Jerusalem, Eleutheropolis, 
and Caesarea. He gives a list of the bishops 
of Jerusalem who lived through the troublous 
times. He appears to quote C as the Baptismal 
Creed of his diocese, to which he was conse- 
crated in A.D. 367. 

Hort suggested that when Cyril went to 
Constantinople for the Council of a.p. 381 
he brought up his creed to prove his orthodoxy, 
which is saidto have been impugned. Gregory 
of Nyssa is said to have defended him and to 
have been the author of the creed. But Cyril 
was an adherent of Meletius of Antioch who 


92 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


became the first President, and there is no 
serious evidence that Cyril’s orthodoxy was 
attacked. 

Professor Schwartz does not think that there 
were any Acts of the Council formally drawn up. 
But we know from other sources that their 
first business was to settle the affairs of Con- 
stantinople. The consecration of Maximus was 
treated as null and void, and Gregory of 
Nazianzus, who had been consecrated to the 
see of Sasima against his will, and during the 
days of Arian supremacy had been very suc- 
cessful in keeping the orthodox congregation 
of Constantinople together, was elected bishop. 
On the death of Meletius he was chosen to 
succeed him as President of the Council. But 
he was not a good chairman and could not 
control the assembly when disputes arose about 
the succession to the see of Antioch. 

When Meletius was still a semi-Arian, a 
bishop had been consecrated to minister to the 
orthodox faithful in Antioch, Paulinus by name, 
with whom Athanasius had communicated, and 
his claim was strongly supported by Pope 
Damasus of Rome—Gregory pleaded with the 
Council to accept his claim, and thus heal 
the schism and conciliate the Westerns. He 
pointed out that Paulinus was an old man and 
not likely to live long. “ If it costs something 
let us make the sacrifice for the sake of a great 


OUR NICENE CREED 93 


religious gain.” But the younger bishops, 
whom Gregory sarcastically compares to crows 
and geese and cranes in a quarrel, to a whirl- 
wind raising a cloud of dust, to a swarm of 
wasps darting against a traveller’s face, insisted 
that to accept Paulinus would give a triumph 
to the West, whereas the East, where Christ 
appeared, had the right to ascendency. Gregory 
retorted that the East was the land where Christ 
was crucified ! In the end Flavian was elected, 
and a personal attack on Gregory brought 
about his resignation. 

His successor, Nektarius, Pretor of the 
city, was going to visit his birthplace Tarsus, 
and called on Diodore, Bishop of Tarsus, to 
see if he could carry any letters for him. 
Diodore, impressed by his reverend appearance, 
put his name on the list of candidates for the 
office which was submitted to the Emperor 
Theodosius. ‘Theodosius singled him out, and 
despite some protests he was elected. But he 
was only a catechumen, and had to be baptised 
before he could be consecrated. Who would 
be more likely to come to the front at this 
moment than Cyril, the most famous catechist 
of the day ? This most ingenious conjecture of 
Kunze that the revived Jerusalem Creed was 
used as his baptismal confession and became 
the creed of the Church in Constantinople 1s 
supported by evidence from the Acts of the 


94 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


Council of Chalcedon, at which N and C 
were quoted side by side. 

At the end of that Council, after subscribing 
to its decrees, Kallinikus, Bishop of Apamea 
(= Myrlea) in Bithynia, accepting the creeds 
or the symbols of the 318 and 150 Fathers, 
referred in a note to the Council of Constanti- 
nople as having been held at the ordination 
of the most pious Nektarius the Bishop. 
Obviously there was some connection in his 
mind between the Creed and the consecration 
of Nektarius, who as we know came to it in 
white robe of a neophyte. 

The next task of the Council of Constanti- 
nople was “to confirm the Nicene faith.’’? 
We know that they did not compose a creed as 
a rival to N. ‘The Synodical letter of the 
council which met the following year refers to 
“the Faith of Nicaea, which ought to be 
sufficient for you, for us, for all who wrest not 
the word of the true faith, for it is the ancient 
faith ; it is the faith of our baptism ; it is the 
faith that teaches us to believe in the name of 
the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” 
They go on to refer to the ordination of Nek- 
tarius and the election of Flavian, and then they 
say: “‘ Of the Church at Jerusalem, mother of 
all the Churches, we make known that the right 
reverend and most religious Cyril is bishop, 


1 Socr. H.£. v. viii. 1. 


OUR NICENE CREED 95 


who was some time ago canonically ordained 
by the bishops of the province, and has in 
several places fought a good fight against the 
Arians.” 1 This mention of Cyril is significant 
in this context, if we may assume that it was 
his creed from the mother Church of Jerusalem 
which was taught to Nektartus. 

No doubt, as they say here, the Faith of 
Nicaea was reafhrmed against all Arian creeds. 
But it was put forth as an instruction for 
bishops, not as a Baptismal Creed, for which 
it was apparently never used. And the Jeru- 
salem Creed with its Nicene insertions and its 
added phrases, so useful against Apollinarian 
and Macedonian errors, though couched, so to 
speak, in a baptismal form, could be accepted 
side by side with it as an improved recension. 

The Council of a.p. 381 passed four Canons, 
of which the first decreed that the faith of the 
318 Fathers (N) should remain supreme. 
But they also sent a letter to the Emperor 
reporting on their work in which they say : 
“Then they also proclaimed shortened decrees 
both ratifying the faith of the fathers who met 
at Nicaea, and anathematizing the heresies that 
had sprung up after it.” * ‘This is an accurate 
description of the first Canon, but the words 
about the Faith of Nicaea remaining supreme 
might fairly be said to include a reference to 

1 Theodoret, H.£. v. 9. 2 Mansi, vi. 652, 659. 


96 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


the other creed, accepted at the ordination of 
Nektarius, especially if they thought of it as 
the creed of the mother Church of Jerusalem. 

Now we know that Theodosius in a.p. 383 
had certain creeds brought to him and accepted 
the creed of Nektarius, which contained the 
Homo-ousios.1 Then a curtain of silence falls 
over the scene. At Ephesus in a.D. 431 no 
other symbol than N was thought of. In 
A.D. 448 a synod was held by Flavian against 
Eutyches at which N, the decrees of Ephesus, 
and Cyril of Alexandria, were quoted as 
authorities. At the Robber Synod of Ephesus 
in A.D. 449 Diogenes of Cyzikus, who soon 
afterwards meets us as a witness to C, in his 
vote upheld N. 

At the first session of the Council of Chalcedon 
in A.D. 451 the acts of the Synod of 449 were 
read. When the reader came to the recitation 
of the faith of Eutyches, in which he proclaimed 
his belief in the Nicene Faith and reminded the 
synod of the definition of the Council of a.p. 431, 
which prohibited additions to, or diminutions 
from that Faith, Diogenes cried out: ‘‘ Eutyches 
addressed the synod falsely: it received an 
addition from the holy Fathers because of the 
perversities of Apollinarius and Valentinius and 
Macedonius and men like them ; and there 
have been added to the Symbol of the Fathers 

1 Socr: H.E£. v. 10. 


OUR NICENE CREED ae 


the words who came down and was incarnate of 
the Hloly Ghost and of the Virgin Mary. ‘This 
Eutyches passed over, for he is an Apollinarian ; 
even Apollinarius received the Nicene Synod, 
understanding the letter of the creed in accord- 
ance with his own perversity. The holy 
Fathers at Nicaea had only the words He was 
incarnate, but those that followed explained it 
by saying of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.” 
The Egyptian bishops at once contradicted 
him: ‘‘ No one admits of addition ; no one 
admits of diminution: let the decree of 
Nicaea stand good.” There was great excite- 
ment throughout the long session. When it 
grew dark wax candles were lit. At length the 
reading ceased and the Imperial Commissioners 
urged that each bishop should without delay 
expound his own faith in writing, “ knowing 
that the Emperor accepted the exposition of the 
318 fathers who had met at Nicaea, and the ex- 
position of the 1 50 who had met ata later time.” 
At the next session Eunomius, Bishop of 
Nicomedia, read N, which was received with 
great enthusiasm, and Aetius, Archdeacon of 
Constantinople, read C as the holy faith which 
the 150 holy fathers set forth in harmony with 
the holy and great Synod at Nicaea. It is not 
surprising that there was less enthusiasm. 
Constantinopolitan churchmen had _ naturally 


a greater interest in the Council of 381 a.p. 
H 


98 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


than the representatives of other Churches. 
So they pressed for recognition of the creed 
which they had somehow come to regard as 
its work. | 
The Commissioners proposed a conference 
which had important results in the revision of 
the text. At the sixth session the two creeds 
were read again, and the text of C was that 
which we are led to connect with the text 
afterwards used in Rome. It does not seem 
imprudent to conjecture that it had been 
revised with the assistance of Leo’s legates. On 
the other hand the (presumably) Constantino- 
politan text which Aetius had read at the second 
session is the text which was subsequently 
carried over from Constantinople to Spain. 
With the assistance of Professor C. H. 
Turner, whose knowledge of the Latin MSS. 
is unrivalled, I made a study of the old Latin 
text in the “ Journal of Theological Studies.” 
But we must wait for Schwartz’ edition of the 
Greek MSS. of the Acts of the Council of 
Chalcedon before we can restore with certainty 
the text of N or C. There was a natural 
tendency in copyists to corrupt the text by 
assimilating the forms. We may safely say 
that this was more often done by adding than 
omitting. But in these studies it behoves us 
to advance warily and take nothing for granted. 


1 ii, 105. 


OUR NICENE CREED 99 


Comparing the (Constantinopolitan P ) text 
quoted at the second session with the (Roman ?) 
text quoted at the sixth session we find that the 
(Roman ?) text omitted “ God of God,” “ light 
of light,” “suffered.” But they both agree 
when compared with later texts in omitting 
“according to the scriptures ”’ (after “ rose the 
third day ’’), and it is most interesting to note 
in reference to the text in our Book of Common 
Prayer that both omit “ Holy ” (before Church). 

We may note further with regard to the 
reception of C in Rome that Epiphanius had 
travelled to Rome on the morrow of the 
Council of a.p. 381 with Paulinus of Antioch 
and St. Jerome, and would bring with him the 
praises of Cyril’s creed, regarded as an un- 
controversial document. 

Kunze? has suggested, and the idea was 
hailed by Kattenbusch,? that Leo’s letter to 
Flavian gave the impulse to bring C forward 
prominently at Chalcedon because it contained 
a parallel to the words “‘ who was born of the 
Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary,” which 
Leo quoted from the old Roman creed. We 
may add another parallel in the words “‘ crucified 
and buried,’”’ on which again the Pope laid 
stress. We may even question whether Leo 
does not intend to refer to C when he wrote 


L Op. CHD. 37: 
2 Theol. Literaturzeitung, 1898, col. 681. 


100 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


so emphatically of this teaching as professed 
“in the common and undistinguishable con- 
fession ” by all the faithful, and as confessed 
in the creed by all.? 

I conclude that Hort’s theory that C is the 
revised Jerusalem Creed, quoted by Epiphantus 
and accepted by the Council of a.p. 381 from 
whose minutes it was quoted at Chalcedon, 
may be upheld. It is only fair, however, to 
add that Badcock still maintains that the 
Council of Constantinople in a.p. 381 did 
enlarge N, and that C is a baptismal creed 
constructed by the Council of 382 from that 
enlargement, continuing it with their existing 
baptismal creed. He finds the intermediate 
form between N and C in the form of N 
which the Greek MSS. of the Acts of Chalcedon 
give in the fifth session. It is a form which 
corresponds exactly with C except that it adds 
“‘ that is of the essence of the Father,”’ ‘‘ God 
of God,” and stops short with the words “ the 
Lord the Lifegiver.” He admits, and it is 
most unfortunate for his theory if my argument 
as to the purity of the old Latin version be 
accepted, that the Latin MSS. at this point 
quote N.? 

Roe ble eave 

2 Bright, Age of the Fathers, ii. 530, has failed to note this 
point, which answers his question : “‘ Why did not the framers of 


the Definition take care to present the true text on an occasion of 
such solemnity ?” 


OUR NICENE CREED IOI 


Apart from that he maintains that in a.p.430 
‘Nestorius at the Council of Ephesus quoted 
the words “ incarnate by the Holy Ghost and 
the Virgin Mary as from N, and in his letter 
to Pope Celestine he quotes the same sentence 
“from the words of the holy fathers of 
Nicaea”? ; and Cyril! corrects his error in 
Adv. Nest. 1. 8. But this was not all that 
Nestorius’ version of N contained, for in 
ch. 6 we find also “ crucified and buried ” and 
“come down from heaven for us.’”” He adds : 
“It is, I think, clear that in 430 there was 
an authoritative enlargement of N of such im- 
portance that its acceptance by an ecumenical 
council could naturally be accepted.’ ? 

He also quotes “a dialogue falsely attributed 
to Athanasius, in which the orthodox champion 
is compelled to allow that the Catholics had 
made additions to N, and defends the additions 
by saying that the things which the fathers had 
now piously explained were not formerly in 
question.” 

It is possible, however, that Nestorius was 
confusing N with C, or quoting a text of N which 
had become corrupted by assimilation, and we 
may explain the evidence of the dialogue in the 
same way. 

A more difficult problem is presented by some 
verses of Gregory of Nazianzus which Badcock 

1 Of Alexandria. 2 7.T.S. xvi. No. 62, p. 208. 


102 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


quotes to prove that Gregory “ desired the 
Council to do one of two things: either to keep 
N intact (as had been done at Alexandria), or 
to insert an unequivocal expression of the deity 
of the Holy Spirit. Gregory would no doubt 
have desired ‘God,’ though he might have been 
satisfied with the ‘from the substance of God- 
head’ which Damasus had adopted, or the 
Homo-ousios of the Creed of Charisius.1. Instead 
of this, the Council, he declares, had taken an 
intermediate position and so incurred his scorn.” ? 
What they did insert was “the Lord” and 
“ Lifegiver.” 

It is difficult to extract quite such a precise 
statement from the verses quoted, and Badcock 
assumes too much when he tries to prove from 
these verses and Basil’s letter to Cledonius? 
that Gregory seems “to hint that he had in- 
curred hostility by taking an unpopular line on 
the article dealing with the Holy Spirit, and that 
he disapproved of the other additions and dis- 
avowed any responsibility in regard to them.” 
Gregory does not quote any such “ article” as 
composed by the Council. He asserts his 
loyalty to the Nicene faith, but is prepared in 
discussions on the Holy Spirit to confess Him 
as God and recognise the one Godhead of the 
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 


1 Carm. ii. xiv. 26-42. 2 Ibid. xi. 1702-1711. 


3 Ep. cil. 


OUR NICENE CREED 103 


There is a much more serious question which 
must be faced at this point. What is the precise 
meaning of Homo-ousios in a creed in which the 
clause “of the essence of the Father” is not 
included? “It is maintained that though Homo- 
oustos triumphed, yet it was accepted in the sense 
of Homoi-ousios ; and much is made of opposi- 
tion at the Council of Constantinople between 
what is called the ‘old’ (Nicene Western and 
Alexandrian) and the ‘new’ (Antiochene, 
Cappadocian, Asiatic) orthodoxy, though it is 
admitted that this opposition is only partly 
known to us. 

“Of old, it is argued, it had been the unity 
of the Godhead that had stood out plain and 
clear ; the plurality had been a mystery. But 
after the Council of Alexandria in 362 it was 
permitted to make the unity the mystery—to 
start from the plurality and to reduce the 
unity to a matter of likeness ; that is to say, 
to interpret Homo-ousios as Homot-ousios, so, 
changing the ‘ substantial’ unity of being into 
mere likeness of being. . . . And so instead of 
one Godhead, existing permanently—eternally— 
in three distinct forms or spheres of existence, 
there would be three forms of existence of like 
nature with one another, which together make up 
the Godhead. Such, it is said, was the Catholic 
Faith as held by the leaders of the Church 
in the East and in the West (though more 


104 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


particularly in the East) at the end of the Arian 
controversy.” } 

The first suggestion of this interpretation 
came from Zahn ; it was followed by Harnack 
and Loofs. It involves a thorough scrutiny of 
the teaching of new leaders of thought in Cappa- 
docia, Basil and the Gregories of Nazianzus 
and Nyssa, for which I must refer to the pages 
of Bethune Baker and an article by Srawley, who 
concludes that “this theory appears to have 
gained ground from the weight of the authorities 
by which it is supported rather than from its 
intrinsic merits.” 2 

Gwatkin’s “tempting epigram ’’ may be re- 
jected : “ Surely Athanasius would have had 
an anathema for the men who left out the all- 
important ‘from the essence’ !”’ As Professor 
Bethune Baker writes : “ It might be permitted 
to doubt whether Athanasius was quite so ready 
with anathemas. But in any case we shall all 
be agreed that least of all men would he have 
contended for a g/oss if once it was clear that the 
sense for which he had fought was accepted. 
And years before he had made it as clear as 
day that he valued this ‘all-important’ phrase 
because it prohibited the Arian interpretation of 
‘from God.’ ” 


1 Bethune Baker in Texts and Studies, vii. 1, p.3- 
2 Encl. Religion and Ethics, “‘ Cappadocian Theology,” iii. 


214. 


OUR NICENE CREED 105 


‘In the phrase of the Creed * from the essence 
(ousia) of the Father ’ there can be no doubt that 
ousia means the inmost being of the Father, his 
very self. ‘The translation ‘ substance’ which 
comes to us through the Latin 1s not satisfactory : 
‘essence’ hardly conveys,to English ears the 
real meaning : and ‘ nature ’—though ‘ nature’ 
is certainly included in the sense—is quite 
inadequate by itself. ‘Being’ is the nearest 
equivalent we have. ‘The phrase is intended to 
mark the distinct personality of the Son on the 
one hand—He is in Himself, He has His own 
existence ; while on the other hand it declares that 
He has His existence from no source external 
to the Father, but is of the very being of the 
Father and belongs to His being—-so that the 
Father Himself is not, does not exist, is not to 
be conceived of as having being, apart from the 
Son. ... So it is that Athanasius, writing in 
explanation of the proceedings at Nicaea,} 
declares that the Council wrote ‘from the 
essence of God,’ rather than simply ‘ from God,’ 
expressly to mark the unique unoriginate rela- 
tion in which the Son stands to the Father, in 
view of the sense in which it is true that all 
things are ‘ from God.’ ”’ ? 

I think, however, that the importance of this 
matter may be easily exaggerated. Our Nicene 
Creed is not to be regarded, from the historical 

1 De decretis, 19. 2 Bethune Baker, of. cit. p. 60. 


106 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


point of view, as a revision of the first Nicene 
Creed: lf 1t ‘were; 1 grant that omission of 
“* of the essence of the Father ” would be serious, 
because at the beginning of the struggle 
Athanasius laid more stress on it than on Homo- 
ousios. But in fact the case is precisely the 
opposite, so to speak, the sharpening of theo- 
logical teaching in a baptismal creed, an Historic 
Faith, which lacked such a precise term. Its 
fsertigns was a vindication of Nicene orthodoxy. 
Those who had scrupled to use it scrupled no 
longer. ‘The loyalty of Athanasius through half 
a century had its reward. 

We may confirm this argument by a quotation 
in which Athanasius shows that Homo-ousios 
meets this point: “For the precision of this 
phrase detects their pretence, whenever they 
use the phrase ‘from God,’ and gets rid of all 
the subtleties with which they seduce the simple. 
For whereas they contrive to put a sophistical 
construction on all other words at their will, 
this phrase only, as detecting their heresy, do 
they dread ; which the Fathers set down as a 
bulwark against their irreligious notions one 
and all,’’} 

We have traced the revised Creed from its 
original home in Jerusalem to its adopted home 
in Constantinople. Yet another chapter in its 
romantic history is opened. It had been in 

1 De Syn. 45. 


OUR NICENE CREED 107 


ante-Nicene times an instruction for cate- 
chumens. In the fourth century it became also 
a guarantee of orthodoxy. It next became the 
doxology of the faith in the Liturgy. ‘To this 
position,” as Turner has well said, “‘ no other 
form of Creed ever aspired than that of Con- 
stantinople. Alike in the Greek, the Latin, and 
even the Coptic Churches, its majestic rhythm 
and its definite but simple and straightforward 
theology have marked it out as the Creed of 
Christian worship.” 

Theodore the Reader, in his Church History 
(about a.D. 520), tells us that Peter the Fuller, 
Monophysite Patriarch of Antioch from a.p. 4.76 
to 488, devised the saying» of the Creed at 
every service, and again, that Timothy of Con- 
stantinople (A.D. §12-517), another Mono- 
physite, “‘ ordered that the Symbol of the Faith 
of the 318 Fathers should be said at every service, 
as an insinuation that Macedonius [his orthodox 
predecessor | did not accept the Creed, for it had 
formerly been said only once a year, on the 
occasion of the catechetical instructions given 
by the Bishop on Good Friday.” } 

Reading between the lines, we can see that 
the Monophysites who taught the doctrine of 
One Nature in the One Christ used the creed 
in this way as a protest against the Definition 


of Faith of the Council of Chalcedon. And 


1 Theodorus Lector, H.£. ii. fragments 48 and 32. 


108 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


when Theodore speaks of the creed of the 318 
Fathers there can be little doubt that he 
is speaking of C regarded as an improved 
recension of N. He identifies it with the 
baptismal creed of Constantinople, and no 
trace of N has been found in the Liturgies. 
Thus the liturgical creed was called by the 
name Nicene. In the seventh century, Isidore 
of Seville fell into the same mistake: ‘‘ The 
Creed which is proclaimed by the people at the 
time of the Sacrifice was edited at the Nicene 
Synod by the collating of the 318 holy Fathers.” 
That he means C is proved by its use in the 
Spanish Liturgy from the Council of Toledo in 
A.D. 589. ‘The curious thing is that this 
Council did not confuse the forms, nor did it, 
as is so often asserted, insert the words “‘and 
the Son ”’ after “ proceedeth from the Father.” 

At this memorable Council King Reccared 
with all his bishops and chief councillors 
abjured the heresy of Arianism, which had been 
hereditary among the Visigoths, accepting the 
Definition of Chalcedon. At his advice the 
bishops, meeting in synod, “ ordered that in 
all the Churches of Spain and Gallicia, following 
the form of the Oriental Churches, the Symbol 
of the Faith of the Council of Constantinople, 
that 1s of the 150 bishops shall be recited ; so 
that before the Lord’s Prayer is said the Creed 
shall be chanted with a clear voice by the 


OUR NICENE CREED 109 


people ; that testimony may thus be borne to 
the true faith, and that the hearts of the people 
may come purified by the faith to taste the 
Body and Blood of Christ.” 

One of the leading theologians at the Council, 
John of Biclaro, Bishop of Gerona, had recently 
returned from Constantinople, where he had 
resided for some years. The very text in the 
Acts of the Council follows closely the form 
quoted at the second session of the Council of 
Constantinople, which we have seen reason to 
regard as the text used in the Church of 
Constantinople. And there is no doubt that 
the Council did not insert the words “‘and the 
Son.” 

Some years ago | collated the most important 
MSS. of the Spanish Councils at the Escurial 
and at Madrid,! and I found that some MSS. 
omit the words altogether, while some put them 
into the margin or between the lines. When 
the Creed occurs twice, under the heading 
Constantinople and then Toledo, it is always 
under the heading Toledo that the words 
creep in. 

The reason is not far to seek. The copyist 
has read in one of the anathemas of this Council 
of Toledo: ‘‘ Whoever does not believe or has 
not believed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from 
the Father and the Son, and has not said that 

1 Fournal of Theol. Studies, Jan. 1908. 


110 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


He is coeternal with the Father and the Son, 
let him be anathema.” With that fate hanging 
over his head, what was a poor copyist to do? 
Someone began to correct the text first under 
the heading Toledo, and then under the heading 
Constantinople. ‘The interpolation soon spread 
over Spain. It may seem illogical that the 
bishops themselves should teach the Procession 
of the Spirit from the Son and yet keep the text 
of the Creed pure. But we must remember 
that they laid equal stress on the statements 
that the Spirit was coessential and coequal with 
the Father and the Son, neither of which was 
made in the Creed. ‘The fact was that they 
were simply loyal to the teaching of their 
Church, which at a Council of Toledo in 
A.D. 447 adopted a Canon: ‘The Father is 
unbegotten, the Son begotten, the Paraclete 
not begotten but proceeding from the Father 
and the Son.”’ 

On this subject, Eastern and Western 
thinkers started from opposite points of view. 
The Greek Fathers began from the thought of 
the Eternal Distinctions and reconciled them 
as best they could with the idea of Divine 
Unity. They thought of the doctrine of the 
Trinity as an explanation of the creation, mani- 
fested in the work of the Father, the Son, and 
the Holy Ghost. On the other hand, Western 
thinkers began with the idea of the Trinity as 


OUR NICENE CREED Ill 


“a necessity of the Divine Life—to use a 
technical term, as immanent, an abiding 
reality.”1 They began from the thought of 
the coinherence of the Divine Persons, as the 
Lord taught: ‘‘ Thou Father art in me and I 
in thee”’ (John xvi. 21). This led them to 
regard the Spirit as proceeding in a sense from 
the Son, because he 1s “the Spirit of Fesus”’ 
(Acts xvi. 7). 

Hilary had no doubt that the Spirit proceeds 
from the Father and receives from the Son. 
“And I question,” he goes on, “‘ whether it is 
the same thing to receive from the Son as to 
proceed from the Father.” 2 He was evidently 
inclined to answer “ yes,”’ but was not prepared 
to insist on it. His book ends with a prayer in 
which he speaks of the Spirit as from the Father 
through the Only-Begotten. 

Augustine, who did more than anyone to 
mould later Western teaching, faces boldly the 
objection that Christ speaks only of a procession 
from the Father (John xv. 26). “He says ‘My 
doctrine is not mine.’ It was the Father’s 
because He was of the Father. Yet it was His, 
because He and the Father are one. How 
much rather then must we understand that 
the Holy Spirit proceeds from Him also when 
He saith thus: ‘proceeds from the Father,’ 


1 Duchesne, Eglises separées, p. 83. 
2 De Trin. viii. 19, 20. 


112 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


that He does not say, ‘ He does not proceed 
from me.’”’ He is careful to explain that we 
must not think of the procession from the Son 
as following the procession from the Father. 
The Holy Spirit does not proceed from the 
Father to the Son and proceed from the Son to 
sanctify the creation, but He proceeds at the 
same time from both 

The interpolation in the Creed spread from 
Spain into Gaul and N. Italy. It was defended 
at the Council of Friuli by Paulinus, Bishop 
of Aquileia in a.p. 791. Before this Charles 
the Great remonstrated with Pope Hadrian for 
accepting the Creed of Tarasius, Patriarch of 
Constantinople, which had “ proceedeth from 
the Father through the Son,” and quoted the 
interpolated text of the Creed. It is strange 
that the Pope did not reply on this point. 

But his successor, Leo III., while he fully 
accepted Western teaching on the Procession, 
was determined to keep the text of the Creed 
pure, and put up two shields of silver, each 
inscribed with the Creed, the one in Greek 
letters, the other in Latin, over the entrance 
of the “‘ Confession,” or shrine, in St. Peter’s. 

Some Latin monks living in Palestine were 
accused of heresy because they sang the inter- 
polated Creed on Christmas Day. ‘They de- 
fended themselves on the ground that they had 


1 De Trin, iv. 29. 


OUR NICENE CREED 113 


heard it sung with these words in the Emperor’s 
chapel, and found the teaching in MSS. of St. 
Gregory and St. Benedict, which had been given 
to them by the Emperor and the Pope, to whom 
they referred for advice. Correspondence 
passed and the Emperor summoned the bishops 
to meet him at Aix, when they were unanimous 
in upholding the doctrine, but felt that the 
interpolation in the Creed required delicate 
handling. ‘The Pope said nothing about it, 
and they knew that the Roman Church did 
not sing it in the Liturgy. So they sent a 
mission to the Pope, consisting of Bernhard, 
Bishop of Worms, and Adalhard, Abbot of 
Corbie. He met them in the Secretartum of 
St. Peter’s, and an account of the conference has 
been preserved by the Abbot Smaragdus. 
While the Pope readily assented to the doctrine 
as stated by the Synod of Aix and agreed that 
wilful rejection of it was heresy, he refused to 
assert that acceptance was necessary to salvation 
and resolutely refused to insert the words in 
the Creed. They pleaded that he had given 
them leave to sing it. He retorted that he had 
not given leave to add anything to the text or 
take away from it. He advised them to give 
up singing it in the Mass gradually so that 
they could then cut out the words without 
exciting much attention. 

Thus Leo, “ fearless and wise,” arrested the 

I 


114 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


catastrophe of a controversy with the Eastern 
Church. Charles and his theologians continued 
to use the interpolated text, and a crop of 
theological treatises sprang up in defence of 
the doctrine. But it was not till two centuries 
had passed that the Emperor Henry II. pre- 
vailed on Benedict VIII. to adopt the common 
use of chanting the Symbol at the Holy 
Mysteries and with it came the use of the inter- 
polated text1 The breach between Eastern 
and Western Churches had widened. 

Our happy relations with the Holy Orthodox 
Churches of the East demand that we should 
be quite frank in admitting that the words 
“and the Son” came into the text by an 
innocent mistake. ‘Their theologians are con- 
cerned that we should declare definitely that 
we do not thereby assert two fountains, as it 
were, of Deity. ‘“‘ Proceedeth from the Father 
through the Son” would be a more exact state- 
ment to which they agree. The spiritual value 
of our Western doctrine has been eloquently 
expressed by Moberly: 

“The Spirit of the Incarnate is the Spirit of 
God. But it is not so much the Spirit of God, 
regarded in His external existence, or relation, 
in the Being of Deity : it is the Spirit of God in 
Humanity, the Spirit of God become the Spirit 
of Man in the Person of the Incarnate,—become 

1 See Turner, op. cit. p. 60, and my The Nicene Creed, p. 46. 


OUR NICENE CREED 115 


thenceforward the true interpretation and secret 
of what true manhood really is,—it is this which 
is the distinctive revelation of the New Testa- 
ment, the distinctive significance and life of the 
Church of Christ. ‘This is the truth, immense in 
its significance for practical Christianity, which 
the so-called doctrine of the ‘ Double Procession ’ 
directly protects ; and which the denial of that 
doctrine tends directly to impair. It may be 
that the removal of the ‘ Filioque’ from the 
Nicene Creed would not necessarily imply a 
denial of the doctrine : but there can at least 
be little doubt, historically speaking, that the 
‘Filioque’ has served, to the doctrine, as a 
bulwark of great importance.” } 


Tue Text in our Book or Common PRAYER 
(showing in italics variations from the Creed 


of the Council) : 


(1) J believe in one God, the Father Almighty, 
Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things 
visible and invisible : 


IT 


(2) And in One Lord Jesus Christ, the on/y- 
begotten Son of God, Begotten of His Father 
before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, 


1 Atonement and Personality, p. 195. 


116 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


Very God of Very God, Begotten not made, 
Being of one substance with the Father ; By 
whom all things were made, 

(3) Who for us men and for our salvation 
came down from heaven, And was incarnate dy 
the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made 
man, 

(4) And was crucified also for us under Pontius 
Pilate, He suffered and was buried, 

(5) And the third day He rose again according 
to the Scriptures, 

(6) And ascended into heaven, 4nd sitteth on 
the right hand of the Father. 

(7) And he shall comeagain eh glory to judge 
both the quick and the dead: Whose Kingdom 
shall have no end. 


Il 


(8) And J delieve inthe Holy Ghost, The Lord 
and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father 
and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son 
together 1s worshipped and glorified, Who spake by 
the Prophets. 

(9) And I believe one Catholick and Apostolick 
Church. 

(10) I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission 
of sins, 

(11) And I look for the Resurrection of the dead, 

(12) And the life of the world to come. 


OUR NICENE CREED 117 


The change from plural to singular in “I 
believe ” has been transferred from the Baptismal 
to the Liturgical use of the Creed, being found 
in the (Baptismal) form quoted by Theodosius, 
then in the Gelasian Sacramentary, in which C 
appears as a Baptismal Creed. It can be traced 
in the use of the Frank, the Anglo-Saxon, and 
the Old English Churches. The Creed was 
regarded as the personal Creed of each wor- 
shipper. 

The first draft of Archbishop Cranmer’s 
translation into English has been found in the 
British Museum As Bishop Dowden? has 
shown, he made critical enquiry into the text 
and in the first Prayer Book omitted the words 
“Whose kingdom shall have no end,” but 
restored them in the second. 

Bishop Gibson suggests that Cranmer in- 
serted “I believe” before ‘“‘ one Catholic and 
Apostolic Church” to make a distinction between 
believing iz the Holy Ghost and that there is 
a Catholic Church? Rufinus and other Latin 
writers often draw this distinction between 
believing zz Divine Persons and believing about 
their work in the Church or “ the remission of 

1 MS. 7, B iv., published by Gasquet and Bishop, Edward VI 
and the Book of Common Prayer. Cf. MS. 34191. W.H. Frere 


in F.T.S.1. 232. Edwardine Vernacular Services before the First 
Prayer Book. 


2 Workmanship of the Prayer Book, p. 108. 
3 Gibson, Three Creeds, p. 175. 


118 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


sins.” Cranmer himself, in his Axnotations 
Upon the King’s Book, writes : “ I believe in the 
Holy Ghost and that there is a Holy Catholic 
Church.” , 

This makes it more remarkable that he should 
omit the word “holy” in the Nicene Creed. 
There can be no question that he found it 
omitted in texts which he had consulted! We 
are now in a position to prove that the omission 
was characteristic of the old Latin text both 
of Spain and Rome, and also apparently of the 
text used in the Church of Constantinople. Why 
it should thus differ from the text of the Jerusalem 
Creed and of Epiphanius has not yet been dis- 
covered. The Reformers followed the best 
text which they could find, but the omission is 
none the less to be regretted, since ‘‘ holy ” was 
a note of the Church in the Baptismal Creed 
from the earliest times. We may hope that it 
will be restored in the future Revised Prayer 
Book. It stood in the Sarum Liturgy and may 
be found in the official text of the Roman 
Catholic Church.? 

Thus the long and obscure history of our 
Eucharistic Creed has been disentangled by 
laborious historical research. We cannot be 


1 F.g., in Merlin’s Work on the Councils, of which there had 
been published editions in 1524 (Paris), 1530 (Cologne) and 1535 
(Paris), or Peter Crabbe’s, 1538 (Cologne), or Carranza’s, 1546 
(Venice). Dowden, op. cét., p. 105. 

2 Denzinger, Enchiridion. 


OUR NICENE CREED 11g 


too thankful that it preserves the main doctrine 
for which Eustathius, Hosius, and Alexander 
contended at Nicaea and to which Athanasius 
was loyal. As Athanasius maintained, the law 
of believing is the law of praying. If Christ 
be not co-substantial with the Father it is 
idolatry to worship Him. As a great Scotch 
philosopher, Sir William Hamilton, puts it, 
“Words are the fortresses of thought.” In 
this word we enshrine our conviction that we 
have seen “the light of the knowledge of the 
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” } 


1 2 Cor, iv. 6. 


CHAPTER V 
EPILOGuE: CouNcILs, CREEDS AND CRITICS 


Tue conclusion which historical research con- 
strains us to form about the Council of Nicaea 
is not at first sight satisfactory. We cannot 
look at it through rose-coloured spectacles and 
call it without qualification a Holy. Synod. It 
is part of the reproach which Christ bids us 
bear that we cannot claim that His Church has 
ever been in the ideal sense of the word “‘ Holy.’ 
It is the perennial paradox of our condition in 
this world that ‘‘ we are what we are to be.” 
The greatest saints are the most penitent of 
sinners. When St. Paul called on the sin- 
stained Corinthians to respond to their vocation 
as saints he was echoing the Divine words : 
‘ Be ye holy, for I am holy.” 

The splendour of the vision of holiness 
gleamed brightly before the eyes of the Church 
of the First Days. ‘Through the era of the 
great persecutions it was never forgotten. The 
controversies which raged over the proper 
treatment of those who had lapsed, which led 
to the schisms of Novatianism, Donatism, and 


COUNCILS, CREEDS AND CRITICS 121 


Meletianism, were all concerned with the 
preservation of this most precious jewel of our 
heritage, the ideal of holy living, of holy Orders, 
of holy Sacraments. As the Deacon pro- 
claimed in the primitive Liturgy, “‘ Holy things 
for holy people.” 

The Lord’s parable of the tares sown among 
the wheat is one of His most wonderful 
prophecies. Hisinjunction : “ Let both grow 
together until the harvest ’’ was too often for- 
gotten. But “ He knew what was in man,” 
and the perils that beset the corporate life of 
every group of Christians through the centuries. 
He left His witnesses in the world to make their 
way Eastand West and North and South. And 
in every group, as St. Paul puts it, “‘ It is the 
leaven that leaveneth the lump.” The truly 
saintly souls pass on the flaming torch of zeal 
in His service that can renounce the world as 
well as the flesh, and make new ventures of 
faith. And the secret is ever the presence of 
the Holy Spirit, who brings the power from on 
high that enables and transfigures character. 

These thoughts find manifold illustration in 
the chequered story of the Council of Nicaea. 
As I have pointed out, the reputation of the 
great majority of its members as Confessors in 
persecution is utterly untarnished by their 
association with unworthy intriguers. The 
work of the Holy Spirit was never more 


Lee THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


conspicuously manifest than in the overruling of 
the policy of the Emperor. The actual shaping 
of the Creed put forth as a standard of doctrine 
was the work of true believers. Whatever the. 
mind of Constantine may have been about the 
Homo-ousios, the final result of inserting it in 
the section subsequently quoted in the revised 
Creed of Jerusalem, which the Council of 
Chalcedon raised to oecumenical rank, was to 
vindicate faith in the Eternal Sonship of Christ, 
laying emphasis on the truth of His Godhead as 
against all attempts to rationalise the supreme 
mystery. 

Lord Balfour’s well-known words are the 
conclusion of a mind highly trained in philo- 
sophical studies : “ The Church held that all 
such explanations or partial explanations in- 
flicted irremediable impoverishment on the 
idea of the Godhead which was essentially 
involved in the Christian revelation. They 
insisted on preserving that idea in all its in- 
explicable fullness ; and so it has come about 
that while such simplifications as those of the 
Arians, for example, are so alien and impossible 
to modern modes of thought that if they had 
been incorporated with Christianity they must 
have destroyed it, the doctrine of Christ’s 
Divinity still gives reality and life to the worship 
of millions of pious souls, who are wholly 
ignorant both of the controversy to which they 


COUNCILS, CREEDS AND CRITICS 123 


owe its preservation, and of the technicalities 
which its discussion has involved.’ 4 

The attractive vision of a Church triumphant 
in the world through the favour of the world’s 
ruler soon faded, as it was certain to fade. We 
can see that it led to worldliness, and the spirit 
of worldliness could only aggravate the troubles 
from which the Church must always suffer, 
internal discords between men of different ~ 
temperaments. Constantine’s appeals for con- 
cord and forgiveness of injuries were patriotic, 
as the appeals of a man who, as Seeberg says, 
had religiosity but not religion. It is easy for 
a man of that type in any age to criticise. 
What he lacked was experience of grace. 
After all what matters is that grace should 
abound. And it can only abound where the 
sacramental life is lived and valued. 

We may take heart of grace and continue to 
speak of the holy Synod of Nicaea. We may 
review, we do not need to revise, our position 
in the Church of England with regard to 
Oecumenical Councils. We stand by the 
definite decision to put forward their teachin 
as a whole as a sound summary of belief in the 
Person of Christ. 

The representation of the Western Church 
at Nicaea was meagre ; at Constantinople there 
was none atall. But the Council of Chalcedon 

1 The Foundations of Belief, p. 279. 


124 “THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


was profoundly influenced by the letter of Pope 
Leo, and his legates truly represented the 
general mind of the West. 

Of Councils generally let us be bold and say 
frankly that we are ashamed at the sorry figure 
which the Church has often exhibited at great 
crises when we wish that all our representatives 
should say and do nothing against the truth. 
We cannot command perfection in our Church 
assemblies. From Nicaea onwards leaders 
have been led astray by false motives, and the 
infallibility of Councils, so earnestly desired by 
many minds, is an idle dream. And yet we 
are not mocked by vain delusions. In Arch- 
bishop Benson’s words: ‘ Life corrects the 
error of thought.’”’ When Councils err the 
common mind of the great body of the 
faithful is taught by representative theo- 
_ logians to reject ; when Councils make right 
decisions, the good seed is sown in the 
minds of men for fruition in future days 
and years. The spectacle of ‘ Athanasius 
against the world”’ has never been forgotten, 
though indeed he was never alone, upheld by 
the sympathy and prayers of many saints, 
not only recluses of the desert, but men 
and women of his own flock in Alexandria, 
faithful laymen like Flavian and Diadore 
who kept the flag of Eustathian zeal flying 
in Antioch, and in far off Gaul his great ally, 


COUNCILS, CREEDS AND CRITICS 125 


Hilary of Poictiers, whose strength and sim- 
plicity of character are clearly mirrored in 
writings which have never received due 
recognition. 

In Hilary’s case there was no bias of prejudice 
against Arian speculation as such. His words 
speak for themselves: “‘ Though for a good 
while regenerate and for some little time a 
bishop, I never heard of the Nicene Creed until 
I was going into exile, but the Gospels and 
Epistles suggested to me the meaning of 
Flomo-ousios and Homot-ousios.”’} 

The witness of the Gospels, pondered by a 
mind that only in mature manhood had for- 
saken heathenism for Christ, brought Hilary 
to the same conclusion as the Nicene Council. 
This is a useful argument against the assertion 
that the thinkers of that age delighted in 
dogmatic speculation for its own sake. Far 
from it. We are forced, wrote Hilary, “ to 
deal with unlawful matters, to scale perilous 
heights, to speak unutterable words, to trespass 
on forbidden ground. Faith ought in silence 
to fulfil the commandments, worshipping the 
Father, reverencing with Him the Son, abound- 
ing in the Holy Ghost, but we must strain the 
poor resources of our language to express 
thoughts too great for words. ‘The error of 
stress compels us to err in daring to embody in 

1 De Syn, 91. 


126 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


human terms truths which ought to be hidden 
in the silent veneration of the heart.” } 

It is very tempting to some minds to criticise 
Church assemblies from the comfortable citadel 
of an armchair. Not long since the House of 
Clergy, discussing the Revision of the Prayer- 
book, were accused of wasting time on anti- 
quarian researches, being concerned with the 
maintenance of ancient and difficult dogmas 
and of being oblivous of the fact that these are 
not acceptable to the younger generation who 
are keenly interested in ethical problems. 

The amusing thing about this kind of loose 
talk is that few of the critics define their 
terms. Dogma simply means “a reasoned 
statement,” and it is true to say that writers on 
Art, or Science, or even the Ethical problems, 
study of which is to bring us back to the 
simplicity of Christ, can be just as dogmatic 
as any theologian. And they may be right ! 
The only trouble about theological dogmas, as 
such, is that they may be expressed so tersely 
that they require more explanation than is 
usually given to them, so that the train of 
reasoning involved in them is not appreciated 
as it might be. 

Thomas Carlyle certainly held no brief for 
theologians, but he came to the conclusion that 
in the long controversy which we have been 


1 De Trin. ii. 2. 


COUNCILS, CREEDS AND CRITICS 127 


studying Athanasius was in the right, and said 
to Froude that he perceived Christianity itself 
to have been at stake. ‘“‘ If the Arians had 
won it would have dwindled away to a 
legend.” 1 We may turn the tables on our 
critics in regard of the Nicene Creed by inquiry 
into the ethics of Arianism. Surely if the 
Arian denial of the Homo-ousios is true there 
should be among Arians ex hypothest greater 
zeal for ethical studies, and a deeper sense of 
responsibility for conduct than among the 
Nicenes. We find that the facts bring us to 
precisely the opposite conclusion. Gwatkin 
says that “* The poverty of Arian ethics is most 
significant. Fragment after fragment of the 
Monumenta Vetera is purely polemical ; and 
the Skeireins of Ulphilas is almost the sole 
remaining Arian document which is not so. 
But Ulphilas was only accidentally an Arian. 
Streams rise above their source in mission 
work.” ? 

Here then is the shallowness revealed of 
much modern talk about turning from dogmatic 
theology to ethics. ‘That beautiful phrase of 
the creed of Caesarea “lived as a citizen 
amongst men,” which, alas ! dropped out in the 
revision, is valueless unless we can be quite 
certain as to the secret of that perfect life which 
was not less human than divine. 

1 Carlyle’s Life in London, ii. 462. Seb. 245 Nod. 


128 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


We may quote on the Nicene side another 
missionary bishop who worked among Gothic 
immigrants or among the native tribes of the 
Balkan hills, not far from the scene of the 
labours of Ulphilas, Niceta of Remesiana. 
He belonged, it is true, to the next generation, 
but it is not unfair to quote him, for their lives 
overlapped. He witnessed to the power of 
a ““complete belief”? in the Nicene faith of 
the Holy Trinity, and in his instructions to 
catechumens he was always concerned that 
their faith should be manifest in a good life. 
He was an admirer of St. Basil, whom St. Atha- 
nasius won over to the Nicene cause, and it is 
significant that his description of him does not 
refer to his ability as a metaphysician but as an 
‘outstanding shepherd ” of souls ! The great 
majority of the bishops when they went back 
from Nicaea to their flocks were not so much 
concerned with theological speculation as with 
ordinary pastoral activities of the Church, just 
as the bulk of the clergy who had met for 
three weeks in the year to discuss Prayer Book 
revision went back to their parishes. 

‘No false system ever struck more directly 
at the life of Christianity than Arianism. Yet 
after all it held aloft the Lord’s example as the 
Son of Man, and never wavered in its worship 
of Him as the Son of God. On its own prin- 
ciples, this was absolutely heathen creature- 


COUNCILS, CREEDS AND CRITICS 129 


worship. Yet the work of Ulphilas is an 
abiding witness that faith is able to assimi- 
late the strangest errors ; and the conversion 
of the northern nations remains in evidence 
that Christianity can be a power of life even in 
its most degraded forms.” } 

The last will of Ulphilas contains a con- 
fession of faith in Christ as Lord and God en- 
gaged in the making of every creature—“ accor- 
dingly He is the one God of all who is also God 
according toour people”’ (z.e. the Arians). But 
at Constantinople in a.p. 360 he had signed 
a confession in which the terms “‘ One in 
essence’”’ and “ Like in essence’”’ were re- 
jected as causing confusion, though the term 
“ Unlike ” was anathematised. And he could 
not recognise the Holy Spirit as God and Lord, 
calling Him “ minister of Christ, not king but 
subject and obedient in all things to the Son, 
and the Son subject and obedient in all things 
to the Father.” It is clear that he would only 
speak of Christ as God in a secondary sense. 

This is a good case on which to bring up the 
criticism that this is all a mere dispute about 
words, as Constantine said at the beginning. 
Surely if Ulphilas could use the old credal 
phrase of the Son, ‘ Lord and God,” it was 
enough. But when questions have been asked 
and answered as to the sense in which the word 

1 Gwatkin, p. 27. 
K 


130 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


“God” is used, we cannot ignore the experi- 
ence of the past. We must traverse again the 
dreary wilderness of controversy from implicit 
to explicit dogma, from the New Testament 
creed, “‘ Jesus is the Lord,” tothe Nicene 
eanthon that He is “‘ one Ms substance ”’ with 
the Father.t We do not coin technical terms 
for the love of it, turning theology into tech- 
nology like Eunomius, but we remember that 
he was the most irreverent of the ultra-Arians, 
and gloried in the term “ Unlike,” which 
Ulphilas condemned. This is what Arianism 
led to, and it is proof positive that some term 
was needed to warn off believers from the 
perilous path. 

The truth about the value of Councils lies 
between the statement of Eusebius of Caesarea 
that: “‘ It is impossible to settle any question 
of moment without recourse to a synod,” 2 and 
ae pathetic complaint of Gregory of Nazian- 
zus: ‘‘ If I must write the truth I am disposed 
to eed every assembly of bishops ; for of no 
synod have I seen a profitable end; rather an 
addition to than a diminution of evils: for the 
love of strife and the thirst for superiority are 
beyond the power of words to express.” 3 But 
Gregory was aged and ill and sore over his 
treatment at Constantinople. 


1 See my Introduction to the Creeds, p. 289. 
ar alt Oe a SS S Epo ss. 


COUNCILS, CREEDS AND CRITICS 131 


The case was complicated by the union of 
Church and State. It is an extraordinary fact 
that Constantine, an unbaptised believer of a 
kind, should have sought to control so vigor- 
ously the Council to which he looked to bring 
peace to his empire. He gave to the Church 
not peace but a sword. It was a sad day for 
the Church when Arians were exiled by the 
civil power. It is futile to speculate what might 
have been if the bishops had been left alone to 
deal with error by spiritual means alone. But 
the spiritual power of “‘ a complete belief in the 
Trinity,’ to which Niceta witnessed may be 
contrasted with the failure of Arianism when 
worked out to its logical conclusion, far below 
the spiritual level of the teaching of Ulphilas. 

Athanasius writes with veneration of the 
Nicene decisions, but he held no mechanical 
theory of conciliar infallibility.t We find that 
he argued that their wide reception was a reason 
against unsettling them,? but so far from re- 
garding them as infallible, expressed strong 
disapproval of the terms granted to the 
Meletians.® 

It is most noteworthy also that Julius of 
Rome wrote that the decisions of Councils are 
always liable to revision and says that this was 
expressly admitted at Nicaea.* 

1 Gwatkin, p. 54, n. 1. 2 De Syn. 5, and ad Afros. 

3 Apol. c. Ar. 7. * Ep. ad Danium Flaccillum. 

K2 


132 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


We may distinguish, however, between 
decisions on faith and on discipline, for the 
latter have never met with universal consent, 
while the general body of doctrines on the 
Incarnation and the Trinity, built up by the 
Oecumenical Councils from Nicaea to Chal- 
cedon, has. 

The Christian consciousness has ratified the 
decisions of the Oecumenical Councils with 
extraordinary unanimity. ‘“‘ The experience of 
more than eighteen centuries affords the very 
strongest presumption that nothing short of 
the Catholic doctrine will ever’ permanently 
satisfy the wants of Christian women and 
Christian men.” } 

But in saying this we do not blind our eyes 
to the perils into which such Councils called by 
the decrees of princes, made possible by an 
alliance of Church and State, have inevitably 
led. 

As Hobhouse has well said: “ The great 
change in the relations between the Church 
and the world, which began with the conversion 
of Constantine, is not only a decisive turning 
point in Church history, but also the key to 
many of the painful difficulties of the present 
day.” ? 

1 Dr. Sanday, The Oracles of God, p. 108, quoted by Darwell 


Stone, T'he Christian Church, p. 357. 
2 The Church and the World, p. ix. 


COUNCILS, CREEDS AND CRITICS 133 


Our Lord laid down principles of corporate 
activities and individual sacrifice which the 
Church of the Ante-Nicene age, confessedly 
the Church of a minority, held firmly. We 
may fairly argue that our Lord intended the 
influence of His religion to be intensive rather 
than diffusive. As a matter of fact it has 
always been the personal influence of strong 
characters, endowed with great gifts of the Holy 
Ghost, who have from time to time redressed 
the balance when majorities have swayed this 
way or that into error. 

This is indeed the hope of the future. 
History may reconstruct, but it can never 
reproducethe past. The great stream of human 
life flows on. New problems will arise in every 
generation. They can only be solved if they 
are faced, as Athanasius faced the problem 
of his day, with unconquerable faith in the 
Providence of God. 

It remains to ask what is the value for us of 
the term Homo-ousios which the Council of 
Nicaea has handed down to us. The main 
difficulty which has presented itself to acute 
minds of the present day has been well stated 
by Mackintosh : ‘‘ Substance was simply the 
category by which earlier thinkers strove to 
affirm the highest conceivable degree of reality; 
it was indeed their loftiest notion of God Him- 
self. . . . But we have put aside the category 


134 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


substance, and construe the facts freshly in 
terms of personality. On the accepted prin- 
ciple of modern philosophy that there are 
degrees of reality, a personal union ought to be 
regarded as infinitely more real than a sub- 
stantial one.”’? 

He complains of the orthodox “as placing 
the reality of God not in His will and character, 
but in an inscrutable and unethical substance.” 2 
This would be a serious charge if it were true. 
But it was not true of the real leaders of thought 
in the fourth century. We have seen that 
Eustathius of Antioch, who belonged to the 
school which laid stress on the perfectness of 
our Lord’s Manhood and thus laid the founda- 
tion for due consideration of His ethical teach- 
ing, had as much influence as anyone at Nicaea. 
And we have noted the rich stores of ethical 
teaching in the writings of Athanasius. We 
cannot deny that both in the past and the present 
some theologians have debated the meaning of 
“substance” and “ person” and “ nature,” in 
an arid atmosphere of metaphysics in which 
ethical ideals could only wither and die. But we 
may fairly claim to be judged by the best and 
not the worst representatives. As it happens 
we can claim the advocacy of two bishops, who 
have been among the foremost champions of 


1 The Doctrine of the Person of Christ, p. 416. 
AIG ALY: 


COUNCILS, CREEDS AND CRITICS 135 


social and moral reform, so that what they say 
about the use we may make of such a term as 
“substance ” is linked up in practice with our 
highest spiritual and moral ideals. 

Bishop Gore writes : “ The Fathers used it 
simply to express ‘real being.” To say that 
God is the supreme substance and Christ is of 
one substance with the Father, means simply 
that God is the supreme reality, and that we 
say Christ is God in the sense that He belongs 
essentially to this eternally real being and not 
to that different kind of dependent being which 
belongs to creatures.” } 

Again: “It is, in fact, necessary to retain 
the idea and the word, if there is not to be a 
hopeless conflict between philosophy and com- 
mon sense—the kind of conflict in which 
philosophy always at last becomes negligible. 
Philosophy must interpret common sense, not 
contradict it. Also it is of paramount necessity 
for Christianity which believes in God as the 
Creator of persons and things which are real, to 
insist on retaining the category of substance or 
‘real thing.’ Thus if it be necessary for the 
Church to affirm (as Dr. Mackintosh admits) 
that in worshipping the Son and the Spirit it 
does so only because they are really God— 
integral to the divine being—I do not know 
how that could be better affirmed than by the 

1 The Holy Spirit and the Church, p. 231. 


136 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


phrase consubstantial, all the more that now that 
phrase has behind it the tradition and reverence 
of 1600 years and no one could make any 
effective attempt to dislodge it without stirring 
the most determined resistance and producing 
a new and profound schism.” } 

And Bishop Temple writes: “ Until 
Christianity itself had led to the formation 
of a tolerably adequate conception of person- 
ality, it was inevitable that the problem should 
be set in terms of Substance or Nature. ‘The 
failure of Paul of Samosata proved this. But 
in terms of Nature there is no means whereby 
the faulty and perishable Nature can _ be 
delivered from its evils and made perfect and 
imperishable except by the communication to 
it in some manner of the Nature which 1s 
perfect and imperishable. If Christ is to be 
the Redeemer, the Mediator of Salvation, He 
must Himself have this perfect and imperish- 
able Nature to impart ; He must be ‘ of one 
substance with the Father,’ and this is no 
merely pragmatist determination to believe 
what will prove consoling. Experience testi- 
fies that Christ is in fact the Saviour ; Christians 
are speaking of what they know when they 
bear witness to the reality of redemption ; a 
theory of Christ which fails to account for this 
will be a bad theory, because it will be false to 

1 Op: cit..p. 233. 


COUNCILS, CREEDS AND CRITICS 137 


the facts, as well as because it will fail to indicate 
to those who do not know where the power of 
salvation can be found. 

“¢ ‘The question is not yet raised how the In- 
carnation of the Divine Son in one human life 
can impart the Divine Nature to other human 
beings ; in the Eucharist, regarded as an 
extension of the Incarnation, one means of 
accomplishing this was found. And the pre- 
valent Platonic doctrine of “ real universals ”’ 
was found to help, for, according to this doctrine, 
if Christ assumed Human Nature, He united 
with the Godhead something in which each 
man participates, and the very act of Incarna- 
tion is itself the deification of the whole human 
race and of every man and woman belonging 
toit. Yet it is only the Church, to which men 
are admitted by Baptism, which is the Body of 
Christ—not humanity as a whole. ‘This and 
kindred problems were bound to arise later, 
as they did. For the moment Athanasius 
secured what was most fundamental—that, 
in Christ, One who is Very God had for us and 
for our salvation become Man,’ ? 

“For St. Athanasius the issue had been 
quite simple. Areius was trying to account 
intellectually for the presence of evil in the 
creation—in itself a harmless but at best a 
rather unimportant enterprise. His suggested 

1 Christus Veritas, p. 131. 


138 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


explanation cut the ground away from the 
supremely important hope of Christians—the 
hope of deliverance from evil. For both of 
them the evil is there ; for Areius it is an 
intellectual problem, while for Athanasius itis 
a spiritual enemy. It is true that the Arian 
solution of the intellectual problem is a sham ; 
but it is not on this that Athanasius insists. 
The sin of Arianism is that it shifts the 
centre of interest from the hope of salva- 
tion to the hope of explanation. If Aretus 
had triumphed, the Church would have 
become a society of persons holding certain 
highly disputable opinions. What Athana- 
sius preserved is the ground of the hope of 
solution.” 1 

As I have written elsewhere : ‘‘ The Arian 
heresy represents a mode of thought which will 
always prove attractive to some minds. Its 
appeal is to the present, to pressing intellectual 
difficulties in justification of a compromise, 
an illogical compromise, between faith and 
reason. It permits a worship of Christ 
which on its own showing 1s little better than 
idolatry. 

“The case breaks down. From the posi- 
tion, we will call Christ good though we cannot 
call Him God, extremists are led on to deny that 
He 1s like the Father, to deny His goodness, 


1 Christus Veritas, p. 131. 


COUNCILS, CREEDS AND CRITICS 139 


to denounce worship of Him as hypocrisy. 
History repeats itself : the Arian becomes the 
Anomoean. And the warning which history 
gives is this—that to cut a knot which he 
cannot untie is for every man a confession of 
failure. 

‘Worshippers of Christ are not all hypocrites, 
and the main object of Nicene opposition to 
Arianism was religious rather than theo- 
logical, to ensure that prayers might be 
offered to Christ not with hope only, but with 
certainty. 

“In the writings of Athanasius the primary 
interest is certainly religious. Even Gibbon 
lays aside, as someone said, his solemn sneer, 
to do honour to the memory of this champion 
of the faith, who never lost heart, but could 
make of failure ‘a triumph’s evidence for the 
fulness of the days.’ It has been suggested 
that he left the people out of account, that his 
appeal is always to theologians and the pro- 
fessionally religious.1 But a very different 
impression may be derived from the references 
to the faith and hope of all Christian people in 
his Festal Letters. . . . Theological learning 
and the demands of controversy did not make 
the idea of the historical Christ unintelligible 
to Athanasius. It rather grew more clear 
before his imagination. About a.p. 371 he 

1 Harnack, D.G. ii. 275. 


140 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


wrote to the philosopher Maximus, in the 
simplest Scriptural words, teaching worship 
of the Crucified, and with this aim urges : 
‘Let what was confessed by the Fathers at | 


Nicaea prevail.’ ”” 


1 Introduction to the Creeds, p. 96. 


141 


FRONTISPIECE 


The frontispiece of this book is a photograph 
of a letter written by Athanasius to Paphnutius 
(= Paphnutius “ Cephalos”’), a well-known 
anchorite, recently discovered in Papyrus 1929 
of the British Museum, and published by 
Mr. H. Idris Bell.t 


To the most valued and beloved father Paph- 
nutius, Athanasius greeting in the Lord 


God. 


May Almighty God and His Christ grant 
that your piety may long be spared to us and 
remember us in your prayers; for if your 
holiness continues so to do it will be our lot 
everywhere to be in good health. I therefore 
entreat you repeatedly, remember us; for 
the prayers which you offer are taken on high 
owing to your holy love, and according as you 
ask in your holy prayers so will our state 
prosper. I shall do you justice by believing 
that you everywhere make mention of us ; for 
indeed I know that you love us. My care 1s 
chiefly for Didyma and my mother (?) ; for 
Didyma [is in sickness] and my mother is in 
bad health ; so that there is very great anxiety 
concerning me, suffering [this ?] in addition 
and being in very weak health ; yet I trust in 


1 Fews and Christians in Egypt, 1924. 


142 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


the Saviour of all. Living in the midst of 
these sicknesses, we rejoice that it came also 
into your mind to send to us our good son 
Horion. Theodosius... Antiochus, Didyma, 
our mother, all they of our household, we both 
salute and address you many times, most 
valued, beloved father. May the divine Provi- 
dence preserve you for a great length of time, 
ever remembering us beloved most valued. 


(Addressed) ‘'To the most valued beloved father 
Paphnutius, Athanasius in the Lord God.’ 


The papyrus is of the middle of the fourth 
century A.D. ‘The hand is an easy, bold and 
rather handsome one, betraying a_ practised 
writer, but, on the other hand, it is rather of 
an official type. It suggests rather a “‘ private 
person of education than a professional scribe.”’ 
The mention of Antiochus in the household 
points in the direction of St. Athanasius, among 
whose letters is one “to John and Antiochus 
beloved sons and fellow-presbyters” The 
style is ‘‘ very noticeably superior to the average 
of papyrus letters.” Schwartz and Holl think 
that a bishop would not have addressed an 
anchorite as ‘father.’ But if he was of high 
standing and an older man it is not impossible. 
There is “at least a reasonable possibility” 
that we have here “‘ a specimen of the hand of 
the great champion of Orthodoxy.” 


143 


HYMN OF THE ARMENIAN CHURCH 


Said to have been used when Gregory the Illu- 
minator welcomed back his son Aristaces who 
had represented him at the Council of Nicaea. 


We glorify Him who was before all ages, 
adoring the Holy Trinity, 
and the one Godhead 
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
now and ever through ages and ages. 


Amen, 


J ue ’ 
aa bee 


: 


oF i ¥ is 
At ae ‘A 
Ai e r. 





INDEX 


Acactus, Bp. of Caesarea, 71 
Aetius, 77 
Alexander, Bp. of Alexandria, 
Adwelty (40 15,119 
Alexander, Bp. of Byzantium, 
15 
Antioch: 
Creeds of, 67 f. 
Dedication C. of 341, 67 
Synod of 324, 12 ff., 54 
Arius, 4-6, 7-10, 65, 136 ff. 
Athanasius, S., Bp. of Alexan- 
dria, 18f., 21, 33, 58-64, 
70, F705 SO, O30 108 t-; 
Tipu tent t's te 
Augustine, S., Bp. of Hippo, 
rr: 


BADCOCK.“ Dr. tan}. G4. i> 
100 ff, 

Basil, Bp. of Ancyra, 65, 73, 
78 

Basil, S., Bp. of Caesarea in 
Cappadocia, 13, 78 


CHALCEDON, C. of in 451, 96 ff. 

Constantine I, Emp., 3 f., 11, 
19 f., 36, 52, 58 ff., 63 

Constantine II, Emp., 66 

Constantinople, C. of in 381, 
gt ff. 


Constantius, Emp., 66 ff., 73, 
75 i 

Cyril, S., Bp. of Jerusalem, 
83, 87-95 


Diopore, Bp. of Tarsus, 93 

Dionysius, Bp. of Alexandria, 
a7 

Dionysius, Bp. of Rome, 37 

Duchesne, Monsieur L., 5, 51, 
55> 73> 111 


EPIPHANIUS, Bp. of Salamis, 
21, 83-91 

Eunomius, 72 

Eusebius, Bp. of Berytus, Nico- 
media, Constantinople, 3, 13, 
232 2% 30, 365 50, 55 ff., 58 

Eusebius, Bp. of Caesarea, 10, 
TA £502 Foye 27a 30 fas 5S. 05, 
40 f., 55, 58 

Eusebius, Bp. of Isauria, 13 

Eustathius, Bp. of Beroea, 
Antioch, 14 f.;.21,'243.27 ff. 
379 50, 56 f., 79, 119 


GrBsoN, Bp. E. C. S., 84, 117 

Gore, Bp. C., 135 

Gregory, S., Bp. of Nazian- 
zus, 80, 101 f., 104, 130 

Gwatkin, Prof., 5, 53, 104 


146 


HARNACK, Prof. A. von, 10, 18, 

44, 81, 104 

Hermogenes, Bp. of Cappado- 
cian Caesarea, 41 

Hilary, S., Bp. of Poictiers, 
2s FOWsTits 125 

Hort, Prof., F. J. A., 84; 88; 
100 

Hosius, Bp. of Cordova, 11 f., 


23» 79. 732 119 


Jovian, Emp., 79 f. 

Julian, Emp., 76 f. 

Julius, Bp. of Rome, 61, 65, 
131 


Kipp, Dr. B.  y.542, 0, 495 
45> 49, 52, 66 


Leo I., Bp. of Rome, 99, 124 
Leo III., Bp. of Rome, 112 ff. 
Licinius, Emp., 2, 14, 50 
Loofs, Prof. F., 16, 104 
Lucian, Martyr, 10, 57 


MACEDONIUS, Bp. of Constan- 
tinople, 82 

Marcellus, Bp. of Ancyra, 37, 
56 f., 64 f., 68, 82 

Meletius, Bp. of Antioch, 79 f. 

Meletius, Bp of Lycopolis, 4 f., 
43 f.; his followers, 58-63, 
131 


Narcissus, Bp. of Neronias, 
14 f., 19 


INDEX 


Nektarius, Bp. of Constanti- 
nople, 93 ff. 

Nicaea, C. of in 325, 20-52 

Niceta, Bp. of Remesiana, 128, 
131 


PAUL OF SAMOSATA, 10 f. 
Peter, Bp. of Alexandria, 4 f. 


RAVEN, Dr. C. E., 10 f., 28 
Robertson, Bp. A., 9, 36, 54, 
81 


SCHWARTZ, Prof. E., 9, 12, 55 
Secundus, Bp. of Ptolemais, 41 
Seeberg, E., 17 ff., 38 

Seeck, Dr. O., 9, 27 n. 


TEMPLE, Bp. W., 136 ff. 

Theodoret, Bp. of Cyrrhus, 
15, 213 27 

Theodotus, Bp. of Laodicea, 
14 f. 

Theognis, Bp. of Nicaea, 17, 
55 f. 

Toledo, C. of in 589, 108 ff. 

Turner, Prof. C. H., 98, 107 


ULPHILAS, Bp. of the Goths, 
127-131 


VALENS, Emp., 74 f. 


ZAHN, Prof. Theod. von, 42, 
104 


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The Council of Nicaea; 


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